My sermon for tomorrow

I pray that this sermon touches someone who may turn their lives over to Jesus.

Acts 14:8-20

The Visit to Lystra and Derbe

8 And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked: 9The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, 10 Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. 11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. 12 And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker. 13 Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates and would have done sacrifice with the people. 14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, 15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: 16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. 17 Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. 18 And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them.

19 And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. 20 Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

Paul preached the gospel of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah even though at first he wanted to destroy the Way as they called it in those days. Why did he have the conviction which he had to preach salvation through Jesus? Because Jesus called him personally just as He called each of us! Do we live our Christian life like we are called by Him? Most Christians don’t live that way. We have salvation, we believe that Jesus saved us from our sins but are we thankful enough to be useful to Him?

If you know the hell that you have been saved from then you should be very thankful. Many people think that those who go to hell will endure for a while but their punishment will end. That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says that “the smoke of their torment will rise forever”!

Your spirit, your soul is immortal and the body which you enter into eternity with is immortal so your torment is eternal and forever! Just because you don’t go to heaven doesn’t mean that you don’t have an eternity to look forward to, but going to hell is an eternal life which is called the “second death” because you are in the place where Satan is and you are not in the Presence of God, where Life is.

Paul was called to be a disciple and the apostle to the Gentiles so that they, you and me, could learn about the Jesus which paid our debt for our sins so that we don’t have to go to an eternity of punishment. We have the hope of an eternity with Jesus in Heaven and with those of our family who believed in Jesus for their salvation. We are supposed to be the apostle in our family telling others about Jesus. It is our JOB to do this because when we are called to be saved then we are supposed to give that salvation away to others, especially those in our family!

God has chosen you to be His disciple in the place where you work or in the areas where you live to be the person that people can see Jesus through and tell them of His love for them. If you don’t, they may never hear about Him or know about Him because you may be the only contact that they have with a true Christian.

Jesus died in your place

This is the message of Christianity. The Son of God came down to Earth, to be born of a virgin and to become the Savior, the Messiah of the world! He wasn’t a conquering King that many were looking for and He was not a copy of other “messiahs” as some had claimed prior to His birth. He was and is the Lamb of God sacrificed to redeem the whole world if they will only believe in Him as their Savior. Knowing about Him or His message is not the same as heartfelt belief in Him.

Knowing about Him and what He did is not the same as being His spiritually and taking His spirit into your life and your heart.

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29

Salvation through belief in Jesus is the only way to Heaven, there is no other. This is the message which was taught about Him and by Him during His ministry and it is the only message which can save your soul from torment in hell. When you repent of your sinful life, which we have all lived at some point, believing in Jesus as your Savior will change your life forever! Not just here on Earth, but your eternal life will be totally different from those who think they know Him or “have an understanding with God”.

Those ideas will send many people to hell thinking that they are deserving of Heaven. While it is true that many good people may do many good deeds in their lifetime with this idea of their righteousness, some of them may even be pastors, but that idea is not salvation. Satan can convince you that it is and many have believed this lie but when they stand in judgment after death they find that their idea and reality are not the same.

God loves each of us and He does want a relationship with us but that relationship only comes through our conviction of our sinful nature and our belief in Jesus as our Savior. No amount of church attendance or even reading the Bible will save your soul, only your belief in Jesus as your Savior can and will do that!

Jesus came to bring salvation to Israel but when they did not believe that He was the Messiah, He knew that salvation had to be taken to the whole world. This is the command which He gave to His disciples and to Saul a little while later. It is also the command which the church should be following today! Take the gospel to the whole world so that others may hear and know Jesus and the freedom which comes through Him.

The love of God was poured out into all the world through Jesus and His message and it is still being told today. I pray that whoever reads this might seek Him out as their Savior because the days are coming when it will be hard if not impossible to find a Bible or a preacher. Plan for your eternity now because tomorrow may be too late.

RomanRoad2Salvation

If the church was a hospital…

“The United States now ranks third (3rd) following China and India in the number of people who are not professing Christians; in other words, the U.S. is becoming an ever-increasing “un-reached people group.”

If the church in America was a hospital the government would investigate it for the number of “deaths” (people leaving) and shut it down entirely! Why is this happening? America was begun by people who were looking for a place to worship without persecution concerning their faith or religious practices, so what has happened in the 240+ years that America has been a nation?

In a way, the church is a “care facility” for Christians or rather that is what it is meant to be. We are or at least should be studying the Bible there at least once every week, listening to a sermon about Jesus or God’s plans for our lives and learning from these sermons exactly how to live our Christian lives!

The survey, which is at the link above, tells us that people are leaving the church as hurting people because they have not been getting what they need from the sermons there. They feel empty instead of being filled with hope for the week ahead. Jesus is the Author of LIfe and if you leave a church service feeling more dead than alive, something is wrong!

God didn’t send Jesus here to bring people from life to feeling dead! The hope that we find in Jesus should be life-giving and life-sustaining because we will be with Him into eternity if we have given our hearts to Him and live accordingly.

So…what is going on in the church today? People seem to be disillusioned with the message or the messenger but it is difficult to tell which one is actually the problem. Is it possible to fix this? The only way that I know of is with lots of prayer with the entire church body involved in the prayer. If those in the congregation don’t want to participate or even feel the need to participate, then it is likely that the church will soon close its doors.

I was called into a pastorship a little more than seven years ago but the number in attendence on a regular basis has been dwindling for a few years now. Mostly due to jobs being elsewhere and people moving and the fact that our congregation was small to begin with (less than 30 people). Churches are closing at an alarming rate, not just in the so-called “Bible Belt” of the South but all over America.

Only if we will come back to our core beliefs in God and humble ourselves with prayer about this situation will things get better. Although, we are very close to the time of Jesus’ return for His Bride, at least that part of her that is left. It is during this time when the faith of many will grow cold and after the church is taken up things will only get worse. I pray that we will come back to our faith and trust in the Lord and maybe things will turn around before it is too late.

Humble

Consider…love

There is so much hate and discord in the world today, why are we seeing all of these terrible problems all around us? In my opinion, it is because we haven’t tried to love people more. I don’t mean physical love or some kind of superficial love. The kind of love that I am speaking of is God’s kind of love.

“Well, now how do we do that?” you might say. The same way that Jesus did. If He can do it and His disciples did it then why can’t we do it today? If you truly are a Christian and you’ve been changed by His Spirit then you should be able to love someone in the same way that Jesus loved them. Not by looking at their skin color or how beautiful or handsome they are…but by seeing them the way that God looks at them. By seeing the value of their souls to God!

Jesus said if a man gained the whole world but loses his soul, what good would it do that man? In this, Jesus was speaking of the wealth of the whole world! I am not sure how much that could be but I know it would be in the trillions of dollars! That is still less than the value of your soul to God.

AngelsRejoice God created the entire universe and your soul, your salvation is worth more to Him than all of the wealth of the entire world or even the world itself! Imagine what the souls of every person on Earth are worth to Him. The blood of His Son, Jesus (Yeshua). That is what every person on Earth is worth. When you accept the atonement which Jesus’ death provided for your sins and for my sins, you have to agree that we are not worthy of His sacrifice. But He considered us worthy, which is why He did what He did for each of us.

It is not a great stretch to look at the Scriptures and realize that God has loved humanity since He created Adam and Eve. Even though they rebelled against His command and ate from a forbidden tree, He still loved them. He could look down through time and see you and me and each person who will choose to follow Him and believe in Jesus. He could also see those who will choose not to believe, but that doesn’t mean that He loved them less than anyone else.

God’s love for us is not dependent upon what we do or what we say or even if we believe in Jesus or not. God IS Love, so He expresses His love for all of us in that Jesus died for all of mankind’s sins. Whether we choose to follow Him and give our lives to Him is still our choice but I think when you realize everything that is provided for you in this life, then you will make that decision. I just pray that it will be a decision to follow Jesus and give your life to Him.

Angels and Demons

This is a subject which I have not been exactly jumping up and down to write about but it needs to be out here for everyone to see. We read in God’s Word that angels exist because the Angel of the Lord appeared a few times in the Old Testament. Gabriel appeared a couple of times as well. So, if angels have shown themselves occasionally then why can’t demons be real?

Of course, they are sneaky and crafty in their ways but did you know that many of our conflicts have been influenced by their presence as well? In fact, we likely invited them right into the meetings with us. Many times in the Bible you read about something which was done in anger or resentment and then regret comes and a person seeks forgiveness.

It is our own feelings of anger and resentment and fear which invites some demons that will inflame those feelings to a point that we may do something which we would regret. Don’t think for a moment that Satan and his demons and other spirits don’t exist because they exist outside our senses just as angels do. We don’t see them and likely it is a good thing! We would be terrified to go anywhere, especially at night, if we could see the realm which exists beside us here.

Christians are not subject to being possessed by a demon, but that doesn’t keep us from inviting them into our homes and our lives when we are stressed or hurt emotionally. When they are invited they will stay as long as possible and make your life miserable, so be careful about your hatred or bitterness in your daily life. Guard your heart with prayer and study of God’s Word and try to live according to His teachings daily.

GodsBlessing

Where Love is

This word is used so flippantly in our world today until it seems to be almost meaningless. Is love still what it was many years ago? Is it just a word which we say but really don’t mean? In many ways it is both of these and so much more. Consider the definition found in 1 Corinthians 13:

1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

God is the ultimate definition of Love because it was His Love which sent Jesus to redeem mankind from our own sinful ways, to give us a chance to be pardoned and atoned for so we could be worthy of attaining entry into Heaven. This we can do through belief in Jesus and no other pathway or other works is needed so that we can be saved!

God made this possible so that, while we were yet sinners, our sins were already forgiven and paid for and all we need to do is accept Jesus as our Savior and repent of our former sinful ways and follow Him. Today, this seems to be a hard teaching for many but if you want to live into eternity, it is the only way. No other religion in the world gives you access to God in Heaven regardless of the teaching you may hear!

Seek out a Bible teacher that is truly teaching from God’s Word and then pray for your salvation and accept Jesus as your Savior. Then your heart will be changed and you will be able to follow Him as your Savior and Lord!

Immortality

It seems that there are more commercials on television about making you look young again or at least younger than you are. Why do we have such a fascination with youth? When we are young, we can’t wait to get older and when we are older we want to be young again…does that make any sense to you?

We are born needing help with everything, then we grow to a point where we think we are doing everything for everyone else, then when we get old we are back to the point of others helping us with everything all over again. It seems to be an endless circle. But honestly, I don’t want to be young again! Yes, there were many things which I could do when I was younger that I can’t do now but are those things really useful today?

Some of them may be but most of my younger days and nights were spent doing things which I would consider counter-productive today. Many of those which I thought I enjoyed way back when were sinful and dangerous. Like drinking and then driving home or smoking two and three packs of cigarettes every day. Those behaviors are thirty years or more in my past now, but some people seem to want to go back to that point.

Being young is a good thing but why can’t we look ahead of us instead of behind in our life here? Many of us see a life ahead with pain and the maladies which come with old age but I am talking about eternity…immortality with Jesus in Heaven! That life will not have the ailments and frail body which all of us have now. We will be in a body which will never die with no contacts or eyeglasses needed to see the world around us! We won’t need a cane or a wheelchair to get around in or with.

The life that believers will have in Heaven will be one of worship and praise and working in God’s Kingdom forever! There will be no night or heat or suffering or pain and anything which we associate with getting old or being old!

I know, it sounds too good to be true! But, just think about this a minute. Anyone can be saved through the name of Jesus and by His Spirit just by believing in Him and what He did for you and me. You don’t have to be a deacon or a church member for decades, just answer the call of the One Who calls you to be saved. That is all that is needed. God prepared the way for you through Jesus and all that you need to do is believe in Him and accept the atonement provided through His shed blood.

You can get baptized and become a member of a church when you accept Jesus as your Savior but the church membership isn’t a requirement for salvation. The baptism isn’t a requirement either but it is a public statement showing that you are raised to walk into a new life with Jesus. God loves you, don’t forget that bit of information. Seek Him earnestly and you will find Him.

IamtheWay

Faith in God’s Word

I have written a post about the word “believe” in the Bible before and it seems to be the post which gets the most attention, at least on some days. The different ways to express it or use your belief in God amounted to quite a few. Not as many as I had originally thought, but a good number.

Lately, I have wondered about the word faith in the Bible and I found out something which I didn’t expect at all. Do you know or realize that the Bible itself doesn’t make much sense at all unless you have faith in Him? Trust and faith are synonyms and unless you trust what God says…unless you have learned to have faith in God through His Spirit’s actions in your life…His Word will not make much sense to you at all! I remember when I wasn’t saved. Back then I tried to read the Bible and it didn’t mean much to me. I couldn’t understand it at all.

Can’t you have faith without God being a part of it? Not saving faith. You can’t understand Him or His Word until His Spirit touches your life and your heart and changes it and brings you to a point of knowing that you need Him as your Savior! Can you live your life here on Earth without Him? Yes, you can, but when this life is over you will stand before Him and give an account of your life and the reason why you never sought Jesus as your Savior!

There is a part of your life which is under conviction by God’s Spirit. This happens to you and to me and everyone else at some point in your life. It may happen when you are young or maybe when you get to college or it may not happen until you are in middle age, but at some point, your heart will feel it and you will notice it. What you do when you feel this conviction in your heart is the deciding factor for your eternity! Did you get that? This one decision will have an eternal effect on your Life after this one and if you don’t follow His Spirit’s call then you will regret it for eternity.

The word “faith” doesn’t appear too many times in the Old Testament but in the New Testament, it appears approximately 250 times. Depending on which version of the Bible you have, it may appear more times or a little less. Sometimes it is written as “trust” rather than “faith” but it means the same thing. Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding.

Have faith in God. Seek out Jesus as your Savior because there is no other way to Heaven except through faith in Him. Learn from God’s Word what is required of you for this life so that you can be useful in the Kingdom of God after this life is over! Don’t try to get to Heaven on your own merits or by your accomplishments because it cannot be done. The only way to get there is through faith in Jesus Christ and by no other name or Person will you get there.

How many must pay the price?

Why do we have to pay the price of being Christians in America? Why should we have to live in fear of expressing our faith in public, just to bless our food? What is going on in our world?

IleftALighton4you To find the answers to these questions you should read the Bible. Because we are living in the days prior to the Great Tribulation. It hasn’t begun yet, but it is very close. Read the news media of your choice, watch the news on the Internet or TV. All of the small things which are happening around us and many of the larger and more significant prophecies have already happened. Of course, few people are paying attention to these things. Everyone is more worried about illegal immigrants and their children than they are about our veterans or the economy.

I don’t want to get on a soapbox about any of these issues here. But, there are so many issues which are truly outside the reporting of the news today until many of these should be taken up by someone who wants to bring them to the people’s attention. So, back to my point and the title of this piece.

How many must pay the price? I know there are some who will wonder “Which of the “many” are you talking about?”! In truth. I am speaking of those who have put their faith and their lives in the belief in Jesus for salvation. There are many places in our world today, even in America, where being a Christian is dangerous. Christians are put in jail, stoned, killed, taken to court for their beliefs, and the list could go on…all because of their faith in Jesus.

Why?

If you don’t believe in Jesus, I am not going to try to kill you so why would you want to kill me because my faith is not the same as yours? I never have understood why atheists want to argue with Christians about their beliefs when the atheist doesn’t believe what they believe. What is the argument about? I am not going to change my belief in my Savior just because you don’t believe in Him. For many who are atheists, I don’t think my belief in Jesus could change their mind either so what is the point?

Then there are the other religions of the world and I am not going into a description of them because I don’t know enough about them other than they don’t believe the way I do. But, that doesn’t mean that I hate them. I have a love for people which is only explained by the Love of Christ in my heart. He loves you and deemed you worthy of His sacrifice to pay the debt for your sins, therefore I love you in Christ. I don’t know most of you who will read this, but that doesn’t change anything.

WhereAreYouGoing Jesus still loves you, God loves you so, in Christ I love you and I pray that you will find salvation in Jesus before the end of your life. Because the alternative is too horrible to imagine. An eternity of punishment in hell because you didn’t choose to believe in and follow Jesus. It doesn’t matter what sins you may have committed in this life, that is the one which will send you to hell! You may be punished for your other sins, but that decision is the one which condemns you to hell and no other.

What is your calling?

Have you considered what your calling in your walk with Jesus really is? Many people it seems have never thought about this in the least. Some don’t seem to have ever considered it a calling at all to be a Christian and therefore use their salvation in service to our King! Why I have often wondered, are they claiming to be Christians and yet never seek to be a servant of His?

John Newton, the writer of that great hymn “Amazing Grace”, said this just before his death: “it is a great thing to die; and when flesh and heart fail, to have God for the strength of our heart and our portion forever;….”

At another time prior to his death, he said these words: “Hereafter I hope, when I shut my eyes on the things of time, I shall open them in a better world. What a thing it is to live under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty! I am going the way of all flesh. If it were not so, how could I dare to stand before Him?”

I just finished reading Mr. Newton’s autobiography and he was a libertine as he put it during his younger years. But, he came to his senses during his marriage to his sweetheart. God used him in a special and powerful way to touch more lives after his life than during it because of the song which he wrote mostly about his early life and his salvation. Many of us can see our own lives within that song, in each verse, and in our own walk with the Lord or even by our attempts to run from HIm.

In the book of Jonah, you can see just how futile running away really is. In Genesis, Adam and Eve try to hide from the Presence of God but it is futile. God knows where each person is, He knows the number of hairs on our heads and He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky…so there is no possibility of getting away from Him.

So, think on this…God loves you in a more deep and entirely spiritual way than we can understand in this life. He has provided the Way for you to come to Him in forgiveness and stain-free from the sin which we all have in this life. That way is through Jesus and by belief in Him and the atonement which He paid for with His death and resurrection on the cross. There is no other pathway to eternity in Heaven except by Him, so make sure of your salvation before you draw your last breath.

Good shepherd