What is your motivation?

For Christians who have given their hearts and their lives to Jesus the Christ it is His sacrifice and His death on the cross so many years ago. What motivates you to do the things which Jesus commanded his apostles to do? It was the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb after three days. He fulfilled His own prophecy. He is our motivation. Jesus is the Son of God and it was His willing sacrifice which paid the price for your soul and for mine.

His humanity, the frail body of flesh and the knowledge of the pain and suffering which He was about to go through…it was all of that and more that caused Him to pray so fervently and deeply that He was sweating drops of blood. He was shedding blood during His prayer before He was arrested to go through a mock trial. He was asking His Father for the strength to go through the ordeal that He knew was about to come upon Him.

Eternity was paid for by the blood of Jesus. He paid that price for all of humanity, not just the Jewish people or the Syrians, or those in Africa or China or in a country which didn’t exist at the time…America. He could see down through time that each of our lives would mean so much. Not just because we would give our hearts to Him as new followers but because of those that each of us may have some influence in some way to bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are His ambassadors in the place where we work and live and even on the Internet if we will carry His message to them.

Blood was shed in the Garden to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. God provided the lamb which gave its life to provide its skin to cover them and their nakedness. When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God provided a ram to be the sacrifice instead. There are many other examples in the Old Testament where God provided food and water for people who didn’t believe in Him and didn’t want to follow Him. But when they got into trouble or in captivity by a conqueror from another land, they cried out to God for help. When He delivered them they would follow Him faithfully for a while but then they would drift away from His love and His purpose. This pattern happened over and over again but God never really left them alone. He was always there even when He would tell them that He wasn’t going to hear their prayers.

Why am I writing this today? Because there are many people who need to hear it. Jesus loves you. God loves you and if you read His Word you can find His love in almost every book of it. He came in the form of Jesus His Son so that you and I could be redeemed and our sins would be forgiven so that we would be able to stand in His Presence and tell Him one day that Jesus’ blood has covered our sins and have Jesus stand with us saying that “This person belongs to Me”. That will be the most wonderful feeling that all believers will ever have. To know that the Creator loves you and He gave His Son as the perfect sacrifice for each of us so that we can be made in the likeness of Jesus.

The Creator came into Creation as the perfect lamb, without blemish or spot so that each of us have a chance to be saved from our sins and our sinful nature. He changes each of us inside all the way down to our soul so that we will be a new person. Not the same person that we were but a forgiven and redeemed person clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Seek Him while there is time because without Jesus there is no salvation and there is no way to enter in Heaven without Him.

Sin forgiven in Eden

It seems that many of our preachers and those who have been in church have forgotten that the Son was present from the very beginning. The Spirit and the Living Word were both present during the week of creation.

When God gave Adam the first commandment or rule it wasn’t long before it was broken. Since sin could not be covered by anything but the shedding of blood, God had to kill a couple of animals, likely sheep, to atone or cover their sin and their nakedness before He cast them from the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were very much like children or babes in Christ at this time. They knew God personally and had walked with Him and yet they sinned by disobeying His commandment about the tree of knowledge.

A few chapters later in Genesis, God commands Abraham to take his son and sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah. While they were going, Isaac asked his father about the sacrifice that they would use. Abraham told him that God would provide a sacrifice for them. Abraham’s faith in God was such that he reasoned that even if he sacrificed his son, God would raise him up again so that God’s promise would not fail. He was right about God providing the sacrifice because even when he had bound Isaac and was about to bring the knife down, an angel stopped him and told him to look about and a ram was caught in a bush.

All of these salvation precursors are placed in God’s Word because He has wanted us to see that we have a choice to follow Him. We are chosen from before the foundation of the world to become His children.

Even when the Israelites walked into Egypt to live because of the famine which had gripped the entire Middle East, God had a plan. Joseph who had been sold into slavery by his brothers prophesied about their release from slavery and told them to carry his bones into the promised land when they saved from their slavery one day. They didn’t know it would be over 400 years before that time would come, yet they hoped and prayed for a deliverer all of that time. God heard their prayer and raised up Moses in the palace of Pharaoh, the son of a Hebrew slave but raised as a prince in Egypt. In time, he would be their savior from the oppression of their slavery and their subjugation of over four centuries.

Although it was not Moses who actually saved them and brought them out of Egypt, it was God and His signs and wonders that caused them to be cast from their slavery to a nation in order for them to become a nation. This is also a precursor or a type which shows how we are saved from our bondage to sin. Some of us spend many years in bondage to sin although we look at it as “living the life”. What life is there without God in it? There is no life in reality without God’s Presence. You are like a zombie before you come to realize that you need Jesus as your Savior. He calls you and me as “the dead” because without the Holy Spirit coming into our life, we are dead to Him and His influence in our life.

God has a plan for each of us and in His timing He will bring us out of that dead world into His world of Life everlasting. When you feel His touch in your heart and you know that you are a sinner without Jesus in your life, you will come to Him. All of the Old Testament “types” which I have outlined here point us toward salvation because each of them are a picture of how we are before knowing Jesus and when we are set free because of our faith in Jesus. These are but a few of the types which point us toward our Savior and they are in the Old Testament, all the way back to the very beginning of the book of Genesis.

I pray that you will give your heart to Jesus and ask His forgiveness for your prior sinful ways so that you can enjoy the gift of eternal life with Him one day.

Salvation is through faith in Jesus alone and when you are brought to that cross you must make a choice, follow Jesus or go back the way you came. Salvation isn’t forced on you, but you have to be willing to give your life to Him for it.

Before you can walk…

God’s Word is full of pictures in words about how the Christian should learn to follow Him. The problem is that for most of us we’ve never had anyone in our lives to show us and explain what the baby steps are and how to progress from there. If you have ever listened to a sermon on TV or at a church revival or even at a friend’s church you have likely wondered exactly how to become a Christian and then what do I do when this happens? Where do I go from this point?

Baby steps are the first options which we all have. When we are learning to walk, we don’t wake up one day and just run around the house and down the street. It is the same way with believers. You don’t come down the aisle one day or night and repent of your sins and then you understand all of the theology and mysteries found in the Bible. God doesn’t dump the Old and New Testaments in your brain and tell you to get out there and make Him proud! There have been some days that I wish He had done that but we aren’t capable of going from a non-believer one day and then have the ability to understand all of the mysteries of the Bible on the next day.

Talk about a mind-blowing experience! That would truly put us in the asylum for sure.

The problem with becoming a Christian is that many times you are on your own. Once you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, most churches expect your parents or friends to help you to learn about your faith and what you should do with this new life which you’ve been given. Is this the way it was supposed to be? Well, yes, actually it was because that was the way that God had told the Israelite people to teach their children about Him and their history from the books of Moses and their Prophets..

All of us have a responsibility to lead and teach, not only new Christians but each other. All of us need to be helped along the way. Learning more about our faith and about our Savior and the message which He taught the disciples during the time that He was with them. Saul who became known as Paul even went into a secluded place to learn from the Holy Spirit before he became the evangelist to the gentiles.

Why do I bring this up today? Because many of us have heard the gospel preached and we might have given our heart to Him but we are left on our own to “work out our salvation” by ourselves and sometimes we get in the muck of our own minds. What do you mean by that? Well, work out your salvation doesn’t mean that we must work for it but it does mean that we have to study God’s Word to learn more about Him and what He taught the disciples so that they could take His good news to the world. Humans, you and me, tend to overthink things whether it is learning from Scripture or learning to cook or even learning how to play a guitar. Your mind and your thoughts will get in the way like a puddle of mud does when you are walking or riding in a car or on a bike.

Since we are in the process of being quarantined at home these days it is a perfect time to learn more about your Savior and to have Bible study sessions at home. Get into God’s Word while there is time on your hands and learn more about Him and the love that He has for you because He has loved you with a deep, abiding love since before the world was created.

Can you walk in heaven while you are here on Earth?

According to the apostle Paul we have a place in heaven even while we are still here on Earth. In Ephesians 2:4-6 says it this way: 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

When we pray to our Creator, God, and we do so in faith there are times when we may see the floor of Heaven. When you get a glimpse of the floor of Heaven, you are seeing the golden streets which make up the streets of Heaven. It is likely that you will think it is a dream or some sort of illusion, but those don’t usually happen while we are awake. Can I prove that I saw this? No more than I can prove that my feelings are real or that my imagination can conjure up worlds while I read a book, so I would say that there is no way for me to prove any of this. But the look of reality and the solid feel of it is all that I can describe to anyone. So call me crazy or insane if you wish, but I have experienced this at least once maybe a couple of times.

How I wished at those times I could just take another step and be there with my loved ones who have gone before me. One day soon. How are we to respond to someone who claims to have this happen in their life? I can tell you that most people are not going to tell anyone about this because they will be afraid of being sent to a mental hospital. Only those of us who know how real it felt and can still feel, at times, to have gold bricks as pavement under your feet.

While it is true that we won’t experience the actual feel of gold under our feet until we get there, a vision from God which feels real is the best you can ask for while on this side of the veil. Remember, we are only separated from God and our loved ones by the veil of life here and the different and glorious life that we will experience in God’s Presence. I am looking forward to the day when that trumpet sounds!

If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus, it is time to get busy seeking Him for your Savior. If you have ever felt the Spirit calling you during a service or when you feel convicted about your life and your mistakes then you truly need to come to a saving knowledge and belief in Him for your salvation. I pray that any of you who read this will turn to Jesus for your salvation soon because I don’t think we have many more years to wait. Seek Jesus as your savior while you have the time.

Life from the Author of it

Jesus came to give sinners an opportunity to be forgiven. It was His sacrifice and His love for us which compelled Him to do this. He didn’t have to do it but because of His love for you and me, He did. Many people look at this in the Bible and they don’t think anyone would do this, even when it is written in God’s Word. So, what will you do when you feel the call from God’s Holy Spirit?

Some people try to ignore it. Some even try to run away from the Spirit of God, like Jonah did. The problem with this is that God is everywhere and none of us can run from Him. God uses all sorts of ways to get our attention and sometimes we pay attention and sometimes we don’t. The problem is that we live in a world where there is so much information around us until the prompting from the Spirit could be ignored.

The Holy Spirit is very subtle in the way that it touches us. It is that small voice that you feel more than you hear, but if God is trying to get your attention because He wants you to be His voice at some point then you will hear it. Sometimes it will feel as if He is trying to hurt you deeply, when the truth is that some of us need a whack on our head in order to truly get our attention. The “crisis” that we are in now could be considered a massive whack up side our collective heads.

Pay attention and seek Him for your healing and your salvation as well because we might not get another chance.

Be useful in the world around you

Many of us seem to be stuck in a rut of some kind. We live our lives from one week to the next, day by day doing things which seem to be useful, but would God see your life that way? The letters to the Middle East churches which are found in the first chapters of the book of Revelation tell a story much different from what we see in our world today. But, if you read these letters carefully, those churches mirror our churches too. Some of the letters even remind you and me of people we’ve known as well. They were saved at a revival and baptized and for a while they were on fire for the Lord. But now their zeal has tempered and cooled. The worship may still be there but they don’t volunteer for projects in the church. They rarely come to church now. Some have become “holiday Christians” by only showing up during the holidays.

The letters to the churches in the book of Revelation reflect this “loss of the spark” and even sliding into a prideful type of worship as if God should be thankful to have us! So what does that say about the church in our time, in the 21st century? To me and to a lot of other people who have moved away from worship in the church it says that religion has taken the place of the message of Jesus the Christ. People who have been in the church for many years have lost their “first love” of Christ. Not because He has lost His love for us, because He hasn’t, but because of how much the world around us has crept into the church and with it the “outward show” has been diminished.

The church that the world sees today is very different from the church of sixty years ago. Things which would’ve caused our grandparents to blush because of the nature of the sin, are commonplace today and these behaviors are not taught in church as being sinful anymore. The original message of Jesus about believing in Him for salvation and laying aside our old way of living to follow Him daily has been watered down to something far less demanding and socially acceptable. Jesus and His disciples did not water down the good news and they didn’t change the message so that others were not offended.

The message which Jesus taught did stir up controversy, and He made it a point to tell the priests exactly what they were doing wrong. He also pointed out to them that He was the Messiah which Isaiah has prophesied about over seven hundred years before. The Holy Spirit even revealed to David, when he was writing the Psalms, the way by which the Messiah would be crucified in details which you can readily see. At the time that David wrote Psalm 22, crucifixion had not been used as a form of punishment for crimes deserving death.

Your life, as a follower of Jesus, is given to God through the grace of God and by the power of God because of the sacrifice which Jesus made on the cross to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins. If He had not been obedient to the point of death, we would have no hope of eternity in Heaven. It is because of Jesus’ obedience through the arrest, conviction, scourging and His death on the cross and His burial in the tomb and His resurrection three days later that we have the Hope of seeing Him one day in our resurrected bodies! Was He afraid of the agony that He was about to go through? Yes, He was! The human part of Jesus knew the torture that He would have to endure along with the pain and suffering. His nature of being God in human form knew that it was necessary so that many would come to know Him as Savior and Lord.

We wrestle with our own natures every day after we give our lives to Christ and repent of our old ways. This is what makes the life of a Christian so difficult. Your life and mine are at odds with our “old nature” and Satan slings darts of temptation at us constantly, because he knows which sins you enjoyed so much. Walk with Jesus, read the Bible and pray for the Wisdom of God through the word that you read every day, even if it is only a verse or two. Ask Him for strength and wisdom so that you can withstand the temptations of the world around you.

He could’ve but He didn’t

In many ways we are all fortunate to have a Savior Who loves each of us completely and without condemnation. He could’ve cast the first stone at the woman who was caught in adultery but He didn’t. He met the qualifications of having no sin to be the first to cast the stone at her, but He loved her. Every person that He met during His ministry from the disciples to those who were seeking food or a miracle really didn’t deserve His attention but they got it anyway. Why? Because He loved them and He loves us today, even though we don’t deserve His love.

God’s love for us is far more than we can understand in our limited way. Love started with God since He is the embodiment of love. So why do people either disbelieve in Him or choose not to give their heart to Him? My opinion of this is quite simple: they don’t believe and they don’t want to. Some people just can’t see that God’s offer of forgiveness and eternity is as simple as their heart-felt belief in Jesus and the atonement that He bought for us with His death, burial and resurrection. We don’t have to try to add our efforts, our “works of righteousness”, our help in saving our soul or trying to be good enough. We can’t measure up on our own and it is that simple.

Our self-righteousness is as dirty, filthy rags compared to being a forgiven true believer in Jesus and what He did to purchase our pardon from the penalty of our sins. There truly is nothing which we can do which will gain us entry into the gates of Heaven. God owns everything because He created it all, so He doesn’t need our money. We can’t give Him enough time or do enough in our own strength, even if we did it in the name of Jesus because if you are not known by the Savior then your work in His Name is false because He doesn’t know you.

In order to be truly and completely saved each of us has to know our Savior and be known by Him. If you have felt His call on your life, the conviction of your need for a Savior and the knowledge that only belief in Jesus and surrendering your life to Him will bring you the salvation that is only possible by knowing Him as your Savior then you have a decision to make. Give Him your heart and your life and repent of your sins, regardless of the perception of their size, because size doesn’t matter to God. A sin of murder is no more or less than the sin of lying or stealing in God’s eyes. When you break one of the Ten Commandments, even by your lust for a woman and no more, it is still a sin.

You can be forgiven through Jesus’ sacrifice for you and be adopted into God’s family. When Jesus was confronted in the picture above, He told the people who brought her to Him that the one without sin could cast the first stone at her for adultery. They all knew that not one of them could be considered “without sin”. He could’ve but He didn’t come to condemn people, not even one caught in the act of adultery. He came to heal and forgive and provide a way for forgiveness through belief in Him. Which is why He told her that He didn’t condemn her nor accuse her and He said, “Go and sin no more”. Could she live a sinless life even after that encounter? No, but with her belief in Him and the Holy Spirit’s help she could live her life as an example to those around her.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus out as their Savior and Lord because the time is growing short for us in this sick world. Seek Him out while there is time.

Walking in His Presence

I had a dream or a vision one day but don’t ask me to elaborate on the sights and textures of it. I was reading and meditating on part of the book of Matthew, I think, and I could see myself walking on streets of gold. Matthew doesn’t speak of this but heaven is described this way in the book of Revelation. Why would I see gold under my feet? I don’t know. Maybe God was giving me a glimpse of His home? Just a small “blink and you miss it” types of glimpses? I don’t know for sure.

Don’t you think that is what Jesus meant by living a life more abundantly here? It’s possible I suppose. But if you are so spiritually-minded you are no Earthly good then what is the point of being a child of God? If we aren’t going to take our faith and the message that we should be living by out into the world at large, then what good are we doing for God? Jesus told His disciples to take the gospel out into the whole Earth and that means to our workplace and to the dog park or the market and to the mall as well. But if we don’t meditate on His Word and learn from it enough to tell others about it, what are we telling people?

Do you feel as if something is missing in your life? Do you want more than you have or do you want to be useful to God and His Kingdom? We should realize that we don’t have to be missionaries or preachers or even teachers in order to be useful to God’s Kingdom. God does give each of us a gift or a talent. Sometimes it takes us years to find out what our talent or our gift is. Many times it is because we are not searching in the right place. The only place that we can find the truth about us and what He has given us is in God’s Word and by prayerfully reading it and asking God to show you what He has for you.

God can and will show you. It won’t jump out of the Bible and it won’t be plainly on a page or in a certain book but by learning about God’s requirements for our lives. Obedience to His commandments is part of it, even though we can’t perfectly follow them. Obedience to God and the surrendering of our life and everything in it to Him is the truth of our lives in Jesus Christ. Not giving Him some of your life or some of your money but giving Him all of it. Does that mean that we are to live in poverty? Absolutely not. You were given so many blessings such as your life and your money and your job or business by God. None of it is yours. Your home, your family, your career, your very life belongs to God but until you realize this and truly give it all to Him…your life will never be as satisfying as it could be.

Your life in Christ is in heavenly places. Your soul inhabits your dwelling place in heaven even if your physical body does not. God’s Word says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places if we truly belong to Him. We are there, in Christ, in Heaven with Him and we must dwell in Him and live our lives as if we are in Him until that day when we are translated from this world to the next. We are saved by His Grace not through any vain thing that we may do but by our belief in Jesus Christ for our salvation, it is this which brings our soul into His presence at the day in which we move from this place to His home.

Love makes a difference

Sometimes I have heard people ask in a wondering tone, “Why did Jesus die for me?”. The simple answer is love. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life.”

It is the love of God which restrains His wrath even now. It is the love of God which calls to those who will hear Him to come to know Jesus as your Savior and you will be forgiven. It is God’s love which keeps our lives and our world going and moving and being in this world where there are many who don’t want His love.

God sustained Adam and Eve perfectly for a time. He sustained them and their offspring even after they disobeyed His command about the Tree of Knowledge. God has sustained the universe and our little speck of a world since creation and He will do so until it is time to change things as it says in the book of Revelation.

Yes, love does make a difference. Whether it is God’s love for us or our love for Him and for each other, true love does make a huge difference. In our lives and the lives that we touch and in the work that we do every day, it is our love which makes a difference now and will make a difference to someone else who sees what we do or say. We won’t know about the effect that we have had on other’s lives until we meet them in Heaven one day.

A kind word, holding the door for someone, paying for their meal when they didn’t ask you to, thanking God for your meal when you go out to eat, all of these things are little things but God can use them in ways that we can’t imagine.

Love is powerful and it does so many wonderful things in the world and in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Love comes from God and perfect love is His to give freely to each of us every day. Make sure that you give some away to your family and to strangers alike because you never know the impact it could have in their life and in yours too.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound….

Amazing Grace! We have been given His Grace toward us and for us. Not because we deserve it, because we don’t. God gave us His Grace through Jesus Christ long, long ago because He loves us! Not because of what we can do for Him but because of what He wanted to do for us. He wanted us to be with Him in eternity to praise and honor Him with glory because we love Him for what He did for each of us while we were still sinners, even before we were born, even before the world itself was made…He loved us enough to come draped in human flesh so that He could reconcile our sins through His death on the cross and then redeem us through His resurrection so that we would be with Him in eternity.

How sweet the sound of the words in the song by John Newton. John Newton, who was the captain of a slave ship for a few years and all the while God was working in him and on him. One day, he gave his heart and soul to Jesus and it changed him so profoundly until he had to sit down and write one of the greatest hymns that the Christian world has ever known. Not because of the melody but because of the words and the meaning behind them. This song is a sermon of love…God’s love for us and our love for Him because He loved us first!

“That saved a wretch like me”; John Newton could hear the slaves singing spiritual songs in the hold of the ships that he was part of their crew before being made captain on another ship. It was those songs and the conviction which came by them that made him write the song that we still sing today. Because God loves us even as wretched sinners and He loved each of us enough that He sent Jesus, His Son, to die on a Roman cross in order for us to live in eternity with Him. He didn’t have to do this but He wanted to do it because it was the only way to pay our penalty totally and completely so that we could be reconciled to Him and by Him.

“I once was lost, but now I’m found. I was blind, but now I can see!” We were all lost. Struggling through this life as sinners and we didn’t know that we were dead already because of our sins. But when the Holy Spirit touched our hearts and broke them so that we could see with our spiritual eyes, we would see just how lost we truly were. Then we would know that we needed Jesus as our Savior and we would seek Him out until we found Him and asked Him to come in and clean our hearts and our minds so that we could be His.

“Through many dangers, toil and snares I have already come. His Grace has led me safe thus far and Grace will lead me Home”; In life we do go through toil and snares which Satan has put in front of us each day, but God’s grace and His Strength will guide you and me through these times and carry us home to Heaven one day. Seek Jesus out for your salvation so that you will be lead home to Heaven one day because He is the only pathway to Eternity. John Newton knew it, Billy Graham knew it, and the Bible tells us about it, all that we have to do is give our life to Him and walk with Him until that day comes when we will be taken home to be with Him.