What is the difference?

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/2co.4.18.KJV

We shouldn’t look at this world around us but we can’t help it. This world is physical because that’s how God created it. We can see, hear, smell and taste everything around us for the most part. Our world is moving toward the time foretold in the Bible and we are very close to chapter three of the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

But many people refuse to believe that the Bible is true and they will refuse to believe even when they can see prophecy coming true before their eyes. God knows what will happen and He knows exactly when these things will come to pass. The world doesn’t believe that it will happen but one day they will understand, because on that day there will be no doubt about Who He is. Choose this day to follow Jesus Christ so that you will be counted worthy of His love and His eternal Kingdom.

How can we…?

In our country and in our communities and in our homes we need the answer to this question. Many of us don’t even know how to finish the sentence though. How can we feed the homeless? How can we get our country back to belief in God and His Word? How can we be a light to the world when we are in the process of turning the lights out in our country?

America has had a responsibility for over two hundred years as a Christian nation and now we are denying that it was ever built on His principles. We are pushing hard to get any mention of God out of our education systems and even out of the public square. So…why would God bless America today when we are pointing fingers and shouting so loudly that we want nothing to do with your religion!

I realize that the last few posts here have had a lot of my opinion in them but if you look around in America and listen to our media outlets all that I’m doing is pointing out the obvious. There will come a time, likely sooner than most think it will happen, when God will withdraw His Spirit from the whole world, not just from America. He will do this because we are rapidly becoming a world like Noah’s world was. The hearts and minds of people are evil, in God’s eyes, continually. We are calling good things evil and evil things good.

So many young people have turned their backs on religion, especially Christianity. Why? Because of its claim of Truth and what they see as restrictions on their lives. No one wants to be told that they shouldn’t do this or that because it is sinful. Everyone sees that their friends are doing these things and they seem to be having a good time so why can’t I do them as well? The only way that I can get most young people or anyone else to realize what they are asking is by asking another question: would you take your Mother or your grandmother with you to see what you are doing? Would you be comfortable if Jesus was there? If the answer to either of those is no, then why would you do these things?

Most would answer: Because I want to do them! It is my life and you can’t tell me what to do!

While it is true that I am not your father or your preacher, God can still see what you are doing. He knows the words that you’ve said during your “fun”. He can see every thought and every action that you are doing which is against what you learned in Bible school or Sunday school. The point I’m making here is that most of you have likely been in church at least once in your lifetime and you’ve heard the good news about Jesus taking your sins to the cross and paying your penalty for them. All that you have to do is believe that He did this for you and know that unless you ask Him to be your Savior and repent of those sinful actions and turn away from them to follow Him you will be lost.

Many of us…in fact most of us shook our fists at God in our youth saying that we were going to do what we wanted and there was no way that He was going to stop us! Some of us were smart enough to not really mean it but only God knows who meant to repent from their sins one day and which of us would not and only He knows your heart’s direction from this point on. God loves His creation, each of us is a part of His creation and He knows your heart and the path that you will take. I pray that you will seek Him out as your Savior and lay aside your sins and your selfishness and turn toward Him and give Him your heart from this point on. Read the books of Romans and John in the New Testament so that you can come to know Jesus as your Savior.

The Lord is the solution for America

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord , and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6‭-‬7 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/isa.55.6-7.KJV

Lay your burden down

Cast thy burden upon the Lord , and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psalms 55:22 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.55.22.KJV

Lay your burden down

Cast thy burden upon the Lord , and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psalms 55:22 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.55.22.KJV

It depends on how close you are…

Your life is very precious to God because He knows each of us before we are born. Yet…it takes us many years to understand and know that we truly need God in our lives. We grow through our childhood and if we are fortunate enough to have parents and grandparents who teach us about Him, we may come to know Him early in our lives. If not, then He may have to get our attention in some other way and sometimes it isn’t very much fun at all.

God came to the prophets and to Mary and Joseph by sending His angel, Gabriel, to them personally or in a dream. In this way He told them what He needed from them and how they could do His will. This, of course, hinged upon their willingness to obey God and the word that He sent to them. They had the choice, just as we have a choice, to believe Him and actually do what He asked of them. In the case of His prophets and the Earthly parents of Jesus, they did choose to do His will.

Many people today don’t even believe that the Bible is true and that it is God’s Word. “It is just some old dusty book written by a bunch of crazy old men”; this is a quote from some of the “pastors” of what is being called the “emerging church movement” today. These false teachers do n’t even believe that Heaven is a real place! As crazy as this sounds, they are drawing young people and many others away from Bible-teaching churches today. This was foretold in the book of Revelation.

I pray that all who read this will seek out a true Bible-believing church and pastor and stay there. Get into God’s Word and study it and then read it and study it some more because He is coming soon and unless the relationship is real, you will be left behind to go through the Tribulation.

God will strengthen you

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 Peter 5:10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1pe.5.10.KJV

What does “giving your life” mean?

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was asking His Father if there was another way but then He said “nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done”. I know, it sounds as if I am giving a talk/sermon/post on giving your life to Jesus and in a way I am. But in our time, in the 21st century, giving your life to someone or for something means a lot more. Consider it this way: Jesus was living in the first century. He was a carpenter Who also happened to be the Savior of the world and the Son of God. His parents who raised Him were not rich in wealth. He wore very simple, home-spun cloth for His clothes. In our world today, His condition would be looked on as a man living in a very poor state of being.

God’s Word asks us to give our life to Him, surrendering everything that we have to have all of His riches in glory. We can’t imagine how Heaven is going to be. Even the prophets in the Old Testament and John the apostle didn’t have the words to describe what they saw in their visions of heaven. Any description that we can come up with today would fall very far from the reality that is there. Why do I go to such detail to tell about what we can’t describe? Because when we are asked to give our life and surrender everything to Jesus…are we able to truly give it all to Him?

For most people, the answer would be a very loud “NO!”. God cannot have my business or my family or my home! The reality from God’s perspective is that those things that we don’t want to give up are really His anyway, He is just blessing us with them while we are here. But, many of us don’t want to admit that what we see as our possessions are actually on loan from God, including our family.

Surrendering your life means far more than most of us consider but the giving of our life to Christ is necessary for our eternal home. Asking Him to take everything in your life is not telling God to take your family or your business or your home away from you. It means that you aren’t holding anything back! You aren’t telling him that “this box of goodies is mine but you can have the rest”. That is not how it works. God either has ALL of you and your life or He has nothing. Just as some people today believe either ALL of the Bible as God’s Word or they don’t believe any of it, you can’t pick and choose this part but not that one. It is the same with your life, you cannot choose to give Jesus part of your life and heart…He either has all of it or none.

Make the decision to give Him everything so that He can return the favor and the blessing to you.

Seek Him…

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jer.29.13.KJV

Do you believe in Jesus?

I know that some of you who read this will say “Yes, I believe in Him. What kind of question is that?” That isn’t the belief that I am speaking of. Satan knows Jesus and all of the demons in hell know Him in their minds. They know He exists and that He is real but that is where the difference between knowledge of Jesus and belief in Jesus for salvation branch off from each other. You see, Satan was an archangel at one time before the creation of mankind but he like to look at himself in the mirror too much. God had created him to be the cherub that led the worship of God in heaven. Yet he was proud and became arrogant and persuaded one third of the host of angels in heaven to follow him. He wanted to sit on the throne of God.

What a silly idea. A creation of God was going to war with God in order to supplant Him from the throne. God the Father Who stretched out the heavens and flung the stars into their places with His voice and His hands. God could’ve wiped his entire army away with one command but in His mercy He didn’t. God allowed Satan to live and be a stumbling block to the human race not because God is cruel but because He knew that there would be many nations and many people all over the world. He knew that all of us would need a Savior because He knew that we were going to sin against Him and His laws. God knows your thoughts and mine and He knows that on our own we cannot be perfectly sinless because it is not in our nature.

Jesus came to live in human form but He had the nature of God not man, so even though He was tempted (and He could’ve given in to those temptations) just as we are He did not sin because He knew what His mission was. He had to stay pure and sinless to be the sacrifice for ALL of mankind. That is why He was in a constant state of prayerful communication with His Father. We can do something similar but we can’t live sinless lives. Living in a state of prayerful communication is not as hard as it seems but it does take a lot of practice. I’ve been doing it for almost ten years but there are times when I slip or rather my nature slips in and I will think or say something (hopefully out of earshot) that could damage my witness.

Human nature aside, if you truly belong to Jesus and the Holy Spirit has come in and changed your heart then you can be His faithful witness everywhere you go. If you make a mistake or slip up in any way, ask His forgiveness and move on to a better place or into a place where you can be more effective. God wants us to be His witnesses in this world so that others will want to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I pray that all who read this will understand that I am not bragging because I do slip up more than I care to admit but our Father in Heaven loves me and He sees Jesus living in me and not the flawed human being that I am. Even so, come Lord Jesus.