Abundant grace from God

The hymn “Amazing Grace” is truly a wonderful song and the story of the man, John Newton, is a picture of God’s abundant and amazing grace which is poured out on all of us. But, consider the grace which we all enjoy by the power of the cross and by the name of Jesus. He is our High Priest in heavenly places so we can come boldly into the throne room.

Jesus the Great High Priest

14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15 For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

God’s grace is poured out on us through Jesus and His work on the cross for our salvation. He does this because He loves us, not because He has to. Can we understand His love for us? Nope, but I am glad that we are on the receiving end of His grace rather than His wrath.

God loves us with all of His heart. It has no bearing upon our life or our reaction toward Him. Just as an example of the type of love we get from Him, look at your parents or grandparents. If they were the loving parents who they are supposed to be, you got a very small taste of God’s love through them. The same goes for your grandparents. God’s love is perfect without any conditions, we should live our lives in the imitation of it. We can’t duplicate it exactly but just by trying to live to His standard we are doing better than we can do on our own.

The grace of God and His mercy flows from His love for us and since it is infinite love, we have been the recipients of it even on our worst days. We don’t have to live up to His standards in order to receive it but we should strive toward them in our everyday lives. Because just by doing this through His Spirit, we are better people than we could be without and others will certainly notice it. When they do, they will ask you why you act the way you do even when things aren’t going your way?

God’s grace is so amazing and so penetrating to the depths of your soul until it has an effect on every part of your life. Family and friends will see the difference in your life and your attitude regardless of the problems that you are facing. Take note of your friends and your family and if you can see there are troubles, and there are likely some, get on your knees and pray to God who is the only One Who can take care of whatever the problem may be.

He came for you…

He loves us as the Father loves us…completely and more deeply. Why did I write this in the present tense? Because Jesus is ALIVE and He still loves us just as God the Father loves us today! He didn’t die. At least, He didn’t stay dead. He was placed in a tomb but three days later He came out in the power of God and the proof of Who He truly was and is. Jesus came to bring salvation to everyone who is drawn to Him by the Father. To everyone who will hear and listen and believe in Him because He paid the price for your soul. The message which Jesus brought to the world is simply “repent and believe in Him” for your salvation.

Do you know Jesus as your Savior?

God loves you so much that He sent Jesus as the perfect Lamb of God to take your sins and mine so that we can be reconciled to Him. We don’t have very long, because we aren’t given a certain number of years to live. I may die in a few minutes, you might die in a few minutes but you can become a child of God through confession and repentance and accepting Jesus as your Savior.

This is the only reason that I am writing here. I can’t make a trip around the world, but with God’s blessings and His Spirit working through these words, I can get His message out to the world. I pray that God will t touch your life and your heart and draw you into His family.

Thank you for reading and please tell someone else about my messages here. If they don’t know Jesus, maybe they will be drawn to Him when they visit.

All of creation testifies…

The majesty of God’s creation points the way to Him every day!

Everything in creation testifies of God’s glory and goodness every day. From the giant Sequoia trees to the smallest moss on the ground and the Blue whale in the ocean to the krill that it eats for food, God is glorified because of the diverse and wonderful differences that we can see in our world. When you look at the heavens through a telescope and see the Orion nebula or the Pleiades in all of their splendor, you are seeing the handiwork of our Creator. Why would God create all of these beautiful and diverse wonders for us to behold?

Because He is God and He enjoys creating and allowing us to enjoy His creation, not for vanity but because it brings wonder and awe into our lives and it makes us wonder about the Mind of God and why He would create all of this. Are there other worlds out there with life on them like us? Maybe but He didn’t give us that answer in His Word, He only tells us what we need to know. If you can’t accept that or you won’t accept it, then I’m sorry. God doesn’t owe you or me an explanation for how He does things.

He is God and there is no other like Him.

Should you forgive others?

Matthew 6:15
But if you do not let men have forgiveness for their sins, you will not have forgiveness from your Father for your sins.

We are to forgive others so that we can be forgiven. There are over one hundred verses in the New Testament about forgiveness and most of them apply this concept from you to another who has wronged you in some way. Will God forgive you? Yes, but He won’t forgive you if you are holding a grudge or some other hurt in your heart toward someone else and you won’t let it go.

We are called to be more like Jesus and He forgave those who nailed Him to the cross just before He gave up His spirit. We are supposed to be more like Him in our walk with God in this life but many of us hold on to bitterness from years ago even though it is giving us an ulcer. Being a forgiver of others shows that your heart has changed and it is now the home of the Holy Spirit of God. We couldn’t forgive without His Spirit within us because it is not in human nature to forgive. But with Jesus as our Savior and with His Spirit living within us ALL things are possible.

Can we forgive perfectly and completely? Eventually. Even with the Spirit of God living in your life and your heart, Satan will bring to your remembrance the wrong that you have tried to forgive. He will pester your mind with it and try to ruin your life with it, but with prayer and by seeking the strength of Jesus to help you to forgive it can be forgiven. Our mind may not let it go immediately and it may take a good deal of Bible study and prayer to let something go if it was a really bad hurt in your past but with God’s help you and I can do it.

Jesus taught that it is our duty, as believers, to forgive others. There is no limit to the number of times that we are told to forgive for an offense, and it is to be done completely and immediately. If you will not forgive your brother, then God will not forgive you for your sins. As I stated in a paragraph above, it may take some study and prayer to completely forgive and forget but with God all things are possible.

God has known you much longer…

God knew us before the foundation of the world, our world. It was Jesus as the Son Who formed Adam from the dirt and clay mud in the Garden. Since God lives outside of our universe, He is outside of time as well. He sees the beginning and the end just as we can see the driveway at our homes from the beginning to the end.

God loves each of you far more deeply and with more intimacy than we can imagine. That is why it hurts Him when you reject His gift of eternity through Jesus the Christ. I pray that everyone who reads this will be touched enough to seek out their Savior in Jesus. God reaches out to those who are willing to hear Him and He knows who you are. If you feel His touch in your life, please don’t turn away from it.

God is not done yet

We are useful to God in many ways and our life is a work in progress. He can use our talent in many ways if we will follow his ways. But, you have to work with Him. Learn from Him and from His Word because if you don’t, you won’t know His voice or His wisdom.

Not one of us is born into our life on Earth or our spiritual life with Jesus knowing how everything works. We have to grow and learn as children and when we accept Him as our Savior we have to grow in His Wisdom and through the knowledge which is given to us through His Word. It is a process just like going through grammar school and high school and college. We are not born knowing how to add or subtract and we won’t know how to handle the hardships of life as a new Christian if we don’t read and study the Bible.

It takes commitment and determination to learn about the wisdom found in the Bible. Most people who call themselves Christians today only read it when they are at church. There are very few people who read it daily. Even if they do they aren’t reading it in a prayerful, answer-seeking way. Some are just reading it because they are trying to read through it in a year so it’s more akin to a college assignment than a religious commitment.

God uses many ways to bring us to the point where He needs us to be spiritually. Sometimes, He uses illness or a setback in our business or our finances. Sometimes it may be a death in the family which brings us to Him so that we will seek His answers to life’s questions. You need to realize this: He is never really finished with your learning. You will be learning and growing for many years into eternity. Just because we are given a renewed and glorified body and mind when we get to Heaven, doesn’t mean that He dumps all of the knowledge that you will ever need into your brain.

We are never “done” with learning or with life, if you are a child of God and have accepted Jesus as your Savior. God doesn’t have favorites but He does want a relationship with each one of us if we will follow Him.

One more, Lord, just one more…

That was the prayer of a man during World War 2 who was helping wounded men on the field of battle. It should be our motto and our prayer today. Lord, help me to bring one more into your family, just one more. Then go out and do it again and again.

Sometimes we celebrate one more day sober or one more birthday or even one more day without accidents at work. Why not celebrate “One more day to serve You, Lord!”? Be thankful for all that you have because it is all given to you by your Father in Heaven. Your blessings, your trials, your family and friends…everything good and not so good comes through Him either allowing it in your life or by His blessing you with it. Be thankful for everything and everyone in your life because they are here today but we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, so tell someone that you love them now, while there is still time.

We have lots of time, we think, but that isn’t necessarily the truth. God never promised us that we would have a set number of years to live. Yes, it does say that we may live three score and ten and by our strength we might reach four score years (for all you young folks, a score is twenty years). As we get older we may ask the Lord for one more year to serve or maybe one more day to be with a sick family member. One more…just one more. Seek to be useful to God for one more day and then ask for another and another. He may grant you those days until they turn into months or years. From that point you will be living for Jesus just one more day…just one day at a time.

That really is all we can do. Live our lives for Jesus and His message to the world one day at a time.

God is present in your past and today!

Jesus sees us as clearly in our darkness as He does in our light. Our vision may be limited in times of darkness and fear, but His is not. God knows your hard times and your weakness in those time but He is present in them as well. He said that He would never forsake us and He never leaves your side, even if you don’t know Him as Savior yet.

In Genesis 22: 4-8, Abraham was doing what the Lord God had told him to do. He was taking his son, Isaac, to a mountain to worship God. But, God has also asked that he sacrifice his son on that mountain and he was obeying God. In verse 4-8 the Scripture says: “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you“. Right there is the faith of Abraham. Because God had told him to sacrifice Isaac on that mountain but with his faith he told those young men that they would come again unto them.

Abraham wasn’t senile, he knew what God had asked of him but he also knew that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead if He allowed him to kill his only son. He didn’t know about the ram that would be there…yet. When Isaac asked about the sacrifice, Abraham again showed his faith in God by saying “the Lord will provide Himself a lamb for the burnt offering”. God did exactly that.

In our lives today, whether you are a Christian believer or maybe you are curious about salvation, God can supply you with the faith to believe and be saved from your sinful life. He has already paid the price for your soul through Jesus’ death and resurrection and all you have to do to receive it is to believe in Jesus as your Savior. There is no amount of money that you have to give, there is no amount of work that you can perform which will help Him in any way to complete your salvation because it is already complete in Jesus. God allowed His Son, Jesus, to be sacrificed for our sins even though we didn’t deserve the tremendous grace that would require and we don’t deserve His grace and love even now, but He loves us anyway.

God has prepared so many good things for us through the riches of Jesus and His love for us and yet many people think that believing in Him is just too simple. They believe that they have to help God save their souls. God created this entire universe with all of the stars and galaxies and planets ALL BY HIMSELF, He doesn’t need our pitiful strength or our tiny amount of money for anything. He does ask for our obedience and for our belief in Jesus as our Savior. It doesn’t cost us anything but the realization that we can’t do it all by ourselves…we NEED Jesus Christ!

Giving your heart to Jesus because you know you need Him to save your soul from hell is the easiest and best decision that you could ever make. Sometimes it is the hardest decision too, but consider the consequences of your eternity if you don’t. All of us have an eternity after this life is done, but your location depends upon your decision now, today. Jesus said that there are two paths to eternity, one is broad and many people find it and one is narrow and few people find it. The broad road leads to hell and the second death, the narrow pathway leads to heaven and an eternity with Jesus. Which road will you take?

Only God can forgive

Luke 5: 17-24

Jesus Heals a Paralyzed Man

17 One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.

18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to take him inside to Jesus, 19 but they couldn’t reach him because of the crowd. So they went up to the roof and took off some tiles. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.”

21 But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!”

22 Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? 23 Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? 24 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

In this story, Jesus proved Who He was to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, but they didn’t want to believe. The fact that He knew what they were thinking should’ve given them a clue and the healing should’ve nailed it down too…but they were blind to Him and His fulfillment of their prophecies. So why wouldn’t they believe? It was likely that they were jealous and it became worse with His fame growing.

God sent His Son to His people so that they would believe and be saved from their sins. A few did believe but there were many who did not, even with the miracles that He performed. Even when He raised Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb, many who saw this miracle did believe but when the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees were told of it, all they thought about was that Lazarus would have to die too.

Why did the religious leaders refuse to recognize Jesus for Who He was? Even the name Nazarene had been prophesied years before He came, but they refused to see it or were blinded by their jealousy and by Satan too. God is still using dreams and other means to get to those He is drawing to Himself, even in lands where Islam is the dominant religion.

John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life”. Seek Him out today! He is waiting for you to call on Him for your salvation, so answer His call on your life!