Before…

Before you complain, think about what you have. Before you look at someone with a critical eye, turn your gaze on your own life first. Before you come to the end of your life, make sure that dying is all that you have left to do. Life is too short to live it without enjoying it first. But the enjoying of life for some people means that there is sin in their lives. They don’t think that you can enjoy being a Christian. Enjoyment doesn’t seem to be part of their thought processes when they think of serving God or even being a Christian.

King David, the author of Psalms, enjoyed the Lord. He praised the Lord and danced and sang while he praised God. That doesn’t sound like a joyless person. That is not a depressed and sad person because God brings joy into your life. Think about the blessings which Jesus brings into your life when you are saved! He forgives ALL of your sins, He gives you a new heart for serving Him and others, He changes your outlook on life because of the blessings that you receive when you become an adopted child of God!

Those blessings in this life are not the only blessings that you get from Jesus and from knowing Him as your Savior. Your eternity and your destination in it has changed as well. When you were a sinner, and every person who has come to Jesus (including myself) is a sinner, your eternity would’ve taken you into an eternity of torment. The only difference between your sinful life and the one you have now is that you have Jesus in it. Some theologies say that we are not put in the lake of fire like Satan will be, but being separated from the love of God and His Presence for eternity would be punishment enough. There will not be anything life-giving in hell. No water, no food, no cool streams of any kind and God’s Presence will not be there either.

Remember the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Lazarus was taken to Paradise with Abraham and the rich man was in hell. He asked for Lazarus to bring him just one drop of water because of the agony that he was in. But Abraham told him that there is a gulf between us that no one can cross over. He even asked if Lazarus could rise from the dead and tell his brothers to repent and not come to this place, but Abraham said no, they have the Prophets and the Law. They wouldn’t repent even if someone were to come back from the grave.

Your life before giving your heart and soul to Jesus is very different from the one you will enjoy after bringing His Presence into your heart. That is the reason for leading a joyful life after Jesus has saved you and made you into a new creation, different and precious to Him and to the Father. Serve Him in joy because with God all things can be joyful regardless of how the world may look at them. He will give you the strength to get through every obstacle and every pain and your life will be a beacon of hope to someone until you go to be with the Lord.

When I consider…

All of the wonderful things which God has provided for us, which are given to us by God. We have no control over our health, for the most part, but He gives us our portion anyway. We do not have any control over how many days or weeks or years that we will live, but God does and He gives them to us anyway. Even when we are disobedient to His calling in our lives, He is faithful to give us the necessary things to get through each day. Even when we don’t acknowledge Him in our life, especially for the blessings which we have each day like the air that we breathe and the energy that we have to move from one place to another, God is still faithful.

Consider how we show our faithfulness. Some of us don’t go to church but we are blessed by God anyway. Some of us don’t honor the Sabbath by praising Him for our life through Christ, but God is still blessing us each day. Some days we wake up with more pains and other afflictions which hinder our lives and we blame Him for those days, but God is faithful to bless us with His healing in our lives anyway. When we blame Him or shout our frustration to Him in our prayer time, He hears it and He still gives us blessings which we may not notice.

Would you consider being in a relationship with someone who treated you in the same way that we treat God? I imagine that we would write that person off and never speak to them again, but God isn’t like that. He is not as we are. He is patient and kind toward us even when we aren’t. He gives us the air to breathe and the food which we put on the table. He gives us the ability to go out and work so that we can have food for our families. Everything that you have comes from His hand not yours. We should be grateful and thankful for each drink that we take and for every morsel of food that we eat not just on Thanksgiving but every hour of every day.

God is always faithful to His promises toward us so why aren’t we faithful to Him in our lives? When things are going wrong such as a diagnosis that says we don’t have long to live most of us run to His throne begging to be healed and spared from this. Then when the illness is healed we thank the doctor and the hospital staff and we go about our business as if nothing happened. We forget that it was God working through those people in our lives in order to bring our healing to fruition. But when the disease, like cancer, comes back with a vengeance we blame God for it rather than giving Him praise for His power to heal.

Be mindful of your relationship with God because He is always caring for you when you don’t even know it. Make it a habit to read His word and claim His promises each and every day so when those days which plague all men come upon us you can praise Him anyway, thank Him anyway and get through them anyway because He never leaves you nor forsakes you. Even when we are fickle in our faith toward Him, He is not. Praise the Lord for His mercies endure forever.

Who is Jesus to you?

Is He the child in the manger wrapped in swaddling cloths? Is the He the Living Word of God? Is He God Who came down to us in order to bring salvation and the forgiveness of sins? Is He the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? I could go on and on with the titles which He came to be on this Earth but my point is this: if Jesus is not the King of your life…then who is? If you haven’t given your heart to Him and asked Him to come into your life and make you whole and complete, then what or who is in that place?

Jesus is the real reason for the season whether we like it or believe it or not. There are many in the world today who don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God. They think it is just a book and nothing more but it is SO MUCH MORE. The main reason that I say this is because if one part of it is not true then the whole text of the Bible isn’t true. God gave the words of His Book to those who wrote it down so that all of us who have access to it can learn from it and be saved from the consequences of our sin. Which sin are we talking about? The only one which matters to God: belief in Jesus as your Savior. If you don’t believe that and ask Him to come into your heart and your whole life and allow Him to change you then you just wasted your time.

Without Jesus, without the Christ in your life and your heart all you have is “book knowledge”? Even if you have been attending church for your entire life and you’ve read the Bible in Sunday school and during the sermons for fifty or sixty years but you haven’t asked Jesus to come into your heart and save you then all you have is knowledge of Him without the experience of His power in your life.

All of us need to realize that when we have been adopted as sons and daughters when we accept Jesus as our Savior. We are not outside the family! We are adopted and accepted as sons and daughter of God if you have truly accepted Him as our Savior. God’s love is extended to each of us just like His Son, Jesus. If you are seeking your Savior, trying to fill that space that has always been empty, then Jesus Christ is the One you’ve been seeking.

What is the best gift you’ve been given?

If you are a Christian and believe in Jesus as your Savior then your greatest gift is Jesus and the atonement which He purchased with His blood. It is a priceless gift and one which cannot be duplicated nor returned. This gift is found in the heart of every Christian who has truly given their life and their soul to Jesus and asked His forgiveness for not doing so sooner!

God knows your heart and He knows exactly when or even if you will turn to Him for your salvation. Some of us take a bit longer to learn that we need Him far more than He needs us. He is our Creator but He wants to be your friend and your guide in this life so you can move to the next life with Him. When you feel His call on your heart, please don’t turn away like many people are doing these days.

This gift of salvation doesn’t cost you anything unless you just can’t leave your drinking buddies or those that you hang out with every day. If that is more important to you than your eternity then stay with them. But if you know that this life doesn’t go on but for a few years and that those “friends” won’t be with you for your entire life then I advise you to seek out the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. He can fill that space which has felt empty for so long. That space which you can’t seem to find the exact fit for it and it keeps feeling as if it stays hollow regardless of what you try or who you may try it with. Jesus is the piece which fills in that space and makes you whole and complete.

Is it pity or praise?

Many people in the church look at their lives and say “woe is me”. They are having a pity party and they want more people to join them. Their actions and how they live show that they don’t believe that God has always taken care of their needs, even though He has. They look at their old car or their drafty old house and think that God doesn’t love them because they don’t have the nice things that other people have.

God doesn’t have to reward you for pitying yourself and your life and He won’t. God doesn’t have to give you wealth and prosperity because He doesn’t have to do anything. There are no magic words or phrases which will grab God by His money-belt and make Him respond to your request…because God doesn’t respond to us in that way at all! Living in a pity party doesn’t help your situation at all, in fact it may make it worse.

Remember this and commit it to your memory: God is NOT a genie! He is God and the Creator of everything in the universe. He has trillions of tons of gold and silver in the cosmos and He doesn’t need your money. Our pitiful trinkets of gold and silver are used for paving streets in Heaven, especially the gold, so our money doesn’t truly mean much to God. Our intentions and our willingness to follow Him touch God far more than any amount of gold or silver. Because God knows the heart and soul of all men and He can discern exactly what your intent is.

He knows if you are giving your tithes with a cheerful heart or if you are putting it in the offering plate wanting change back for your twenty dollar bill. So why would He give us money and riches as His blessing for us when we are going to spend it on “stuff” which doesn’t edify the church or bring glory to Him? Truly, God loves each of us but He will not reward us with wealth unless He can see that your heart is in sync with His. I’m not saying that He will give you wealth if you do have your heart in sync with Him but He is more likely to reward you in some way if you are walking along the same pathway with Him.

Your reward may be a long life to tell others about His goodness and His mercy. It may be a life filled with many blessings which many of us don’t recognize as being given to us by God. The miracles of God and His blessings come our way because of His love for us and our willingness to be useful to His Kingdom. Sometimes they are tangible but sometimes those rewards and blessings are laid up for us in Heaven not here on Earth where people can see them.

Live a life of praise toward God and give Him thanks for your life today. Walk with Him and seek His wisdom in your walk so that you might pass some on to someone else. Be attentive to the Holy Spirit and His voice by reading God’s Word and praying about all of those promises that you have seen fulfilled by Him in its pages. Thank Him for your life and your family and the health that you are enjoying, even if you get up with a pain in your neck or your back. Thank Him for giving you the strength to get out of bed anyway. Thank God for allowing you to be saved by the power and the majesty of Jesus and His atonement for you on the cross. God loves you and He has a purpose for you so seek Him out and ask Him what it is and how can you be closer to Him so you can fulfill His purpose while you are here.

Father, I am sorry.

There are days when I don’t live spiritually close to my Savior. There are days when I don’t feel His closeness and His love for me. Why do these days keep coming at me during this time of year? This attack comes from our adversary. The adversary which stirred up those who were jealous of Jesus and His teachings. Satan is his name and his followers go out and try to tear down our faith and wear us down to the point of not being effective in our witness and our life of being a Christian. Do many of you have days like this? I imagine there are more people who have days of feeling defeated and useless to God than there are those who are serving Him joyfully and with gladness in their spirit. Why?

Because Satan knows if he can cause more Christians to either doubt their salvation or feel useless in their walk with Jesus then their witness will be dimmed to the point of being non-existent. When that happens they can’t reflect God’s love toward others and nobody will see Jesus in anything that they do. So how can we live in our calling and in our spiritual walk with Jesus day by day?

We have to get up that day and determine that we will walk with Jesus today. Then do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day until it becomes as natural to us as breathing. The problem will return though. Because when Satan sees you walking in the Spirit and with Jesus every day his attacks on you will increase because you are a problem to him. We need to pray every morning that Jesus would put a hedge around us with angels guarding our moves every day so the enemy can’t sabotage what your life and your witness can accomplish.

God loves each person and especially those whom He has called into His service. Sometimes we don’t feel that we are worthy of His call, like Moses, but He is our Creator and He will give each of us the knowledge and ability to accomplish those tasks which He has given each of us to do. God doesn’t call those who have degrees and lots of letters behind their name although He does use them at times. God qualifies those who can do that which He requires them to do after He calls them. Give your life to Him and see what He can qualify you to do in His Kingdom.

We have time….

This is the LIE that Satan wants everyone to believe! Even though Jesus may not come back for a few years, we don’t have time to waste. We are not guaranteed any time at all. Today could be your last day or mine. Tomorrow may be the day that you stand before God’s throne. Death comes to each of us when God determines that it is our time. So…we don’t have time to waste, especially if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus as your Savior and repented of your sins.

Have you arranged your eternal life with Jesus? If you haven’t then you need to be working on it. Read God’s Word, especially the books of John and Romans, then seek Jesus in earnest prayer and humility. Read those two books twice or three times if you have to but make sure that you have come to a point that you know you need Jesus as your Savior and then ask Him to come into your heart and save you from an eternity in Hell. God hears a humble and sincere prayer for salvation and I don’t believe that He would turn you away if you are truly sincere in your search and your request for forgiveness.

What does it take?

I’ve often wondered exactly what it would take for God to get your attention enough to move you toward giving your life and your heart to Him? Would it take a devastating illness or a death in the family? Would rewarding you with a lucrative career and wealth get you to turn to Him? What would it take?

Sometimes the illness “angle” would likely drive some people toward blaming God for their situation rather than thanking Him for giving them the strength to live through it. Wealth definitely wouldn’t work, unless they knew that it was a blessing from God which allowed them to become wealthy in the first place. Why do I say that wealth backfires as a way to bring people to a saving knowledge of God? Because the “rich young ruler” didn’t need Jesus, he just wanted to know what he could do to gain eternity.

Many times, in the Bible and in our lives, we hear of those who have come to the bottom of their situation and they realize that they truly need Jesus. If it weren’t for their circumstances they would’ve went on with their lives as if He had never been born or even acknowledged that they would need salvation from their sins. Wealth tends to be an impediment to salvation because a need is not present. People who are wealthy or those who have no real needs in their life to be filled by a Savior usually don’t seek Him.

Most of those who seek Jesus as their Savior are those who need Him in some way. Either to give them hope for an eternity with Him or just for the hope of salvation from a situation that they cannot fix themselves in any way. This is why the “love of money” is pointed out as the root of evil. Not the money itself but the love or the pursuit of it as the “god” which can take care of all things.

Consider this: your life and mine only last for a tiny amount of time compared to eternity. Prepare your life for the time beyond this Earthly life because eternity is ahead of you, so make sure of your destination and seek Him for your salvation while there is time in this life to do so.

What have you given to God lately?

Many of us seem to think it isn’t necessary to give God anything. We don’t want to give Him our time on Sunday and He doesn’t need our money. Many of us don’t even want Him in our life or our hearts. So why do so many people who feel this way claim to be Christians? Is it because they know Who He is but they don’t want to know Him really? Are they afraid of Him? Possibly. In years past, God was pictured and preached as a vengeful God and a jealous God and He is both of those…to an extent. He is vengeful because He loves us not because He is going to punish us for something that we said or didn’t say. His vengeance is toward those who have wronged and persecuted His people, Israel. He will also avenge the church which grew in the past two thousand years because of the disciples preaching and because of the persecution which Christians still endure.

God is jealous, not like a lover or a husband, but because the “other” gods which mankind has created for himself are not gods at all. They are just figments of our imagination and our idea of how “god” should be. Humanity tends to try to squish God down into a more relatable god that we can understand. God cannot be put in a box or be made smaller so that we can relate to Him and feel comfortable with Him.

But we still say things like, “My god wouldn’t send anyone to hell.”. God doesn’t send anyone to hell either, that is your choice. God has made it possible for everyone to be saved but there are those who just won’t accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord. When you reject Him and turn your back on His offer of grace to be saved, then you have condemned yourself to hell and unless you accept Him before you die…that will be your eternity. Our spirit is immortal and we will be given a new body for eternity, one which cannot die unless we refuse God’s offer of grace. That is why hell is called the “second death”. There is no Life outside of God and that is where you will be if that is your choice.

God loves every person but He doesn’t like some of the things that they are doing with their lives. Just like parents, He loves His children but sometimes He isn’t happy with their choices in life but He does allow us those choices even if He doesn’t agree with them. Jesus came and paid the price for your sins regardless of their “size”, even though there aren’t really BIG sins or little sins, although the killing of children or babies would likely rank a little worse than a lie any day.

What does God want from each of us? Our love and our heart. Be thankful for His grace which has given you all of your talents and the blessings in your life. Be useful to His Kingdom and for His Kingdom because each of us who have been called to know Him were called because of our influence in someone’s life that He knows that you can reach better than anyone else.

God’s Word is real in our time

What in the world do you mean by “God’s Word is real….”? According to the apostle John, Jesus was and is the embodiment of God’s Word. He was alive and He is alive today. But…do you believe that He is the Son of God? If you don’t then your faith is too weak or you don’t have any to begin with. God is the One Who gives us faith to believe in Jesus for our salvation. We don’t just decide to become Christians, He has to touch our heart and draw us to Himself. Some people think that they can help God save them but we can’t. Everything that is needed has been done through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, your Messiah if you will believe in Him when you feel His call in your Spirit.

Some people think that they don’t have a “spirit” but if you are alive and reading this you do! God placed His spirit inside you to remind you of Him and to lead you to Him one day when He touches your life and you realize that you truly do need Him as your Savior. Now some people get really good at ignoring that “small voice” which speaks to them in their time of temptation and need and that is not a good thing. Ignoring the Spirit of God is much worse than ignoring a teacher or your Mom or Dad. Why? Because His call on your life can mean the difference between a living eternity or one which is called “the second death” because you will be separated from God forever. He is the giver and sustainer of Life and when you are sent to Hell because you chose to refuse His call then that is where you will spend eternity.

You don’t get sent to Hell because of a sin that you committed although refusing to listen to God’s voice could be a sinful and disobedient act on your part. You are sent to hell because it was your decision to live your life the way that you wanted and not the way God had planned for you. That is what caused the Fall of man in the Garden and every other sinful act since then. The root of all of these sins is pride. Pride in what you think and how you feel and how you act. Pride has caused many kingdoms to fail and many people to fail until they realize where that “pride” will take them.

I’m not saying that pride is bad though. Being proud of an accomplishment or of your child’s accomplishment in school or work is a good thing as long as the pride doesn’t go too far. When pride is misplaced in a person or their accomplishment and it grows out of proportion to what they have done, it becomes the doorway to many sins. God’s Word says that “pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall“, so listen to His Wisdom and not your own. Remember, He formed you in the womb and He knows what you are capable of doing, even better than you do or even better than your parents.