Category: when you feel His call in your heart

Life…


Life is not fair.

Life sucks!

Life is hard and I can’t deal with it!

Have you ever heard some of these excuses? They are pretty common today but they weren’t always the “normal” sound of growing up. Why has this happened?

It happened when parents became “friends” with their children and stopped using discipline to raise them correctly. It happened when the educational system became so politically correct that the “education” that our children have been exposed to is warped and useless.

God had to deal with some complainers back when He freed them from slavery. They weren’t free for three days before they began complaining about the food and the water or lack of it. They wanted to go back to being slaves! It seems that today our country and much of the world is heading toward a socialist way of government but nobody remembers that most of the socialist governments have failed! We don’t teach that in school anymore. We only talk about how terrible people have been to “people of color”, regardless of their country of origin.

God loves all of us because He is our Creator! It doesn’t matter what the shade of your skin is, Jesus paid the price for your sins and mine. But if we can’t recognize Him as our Savior then we will be punished for that lack of humility and end up in hell! But there are “religions” which tell you that hell doesn’t exist and it isn’t eternal if it does. Really? That isn’t what my Bible says and that is God’s Word which is the absolute Truth! So, if you want to call Him a liar be my guest but I’m going to be on the right side of the throne when He speaks to you.

God is Pure and Holy and He can’t allow sinners into His Presence. So unless you are the second version of Jesus and perfectly holy, I suggest that you get your life under His control and ask Him to be your Savior today, before it is too late.

What is entertainment good for?


Entertainment- an event, performance, or activity designed to entertain others.

Why are we so hung up on being entertained today? Is it because life is so boring that we can’t stand it if we are not entertained in some fashion? It seems that most of our television time is spent watching shows which are stupid in their content but they are entertaining because of that stupidity. All of these reality shows fall into this group and most of the ignorance which comes from the Democratic side of our government also seems to be in the same group.

Movies, TV shows, a good bit of the news, the list could go on for a long time. All of these things which take up our time and our money fall under the same category of entertainment. None of them inform or instruct anyone about anything.

In the seventies, our news programs told us the real news. The news which was happening in the world and in our country which might be important for us to know about. Most of it would help us to make an informed decision about our government or the people who were in charge of it. The problem with the world that we live in today is that we have so many ways of getting our information and our news until the TV is nothing more than an advertising box for drugs which will make us feel better about ourselves and the world around us.

Sounds kind of out of sorts doesn’t it?

In most newscasts today, the actual news only takes a few seconds of each broadcast. After the “headline” part of a story, we go back to three to five minutes worth of advertising (mostly for drugs). Why am I speaking about this and the problems which it creates? Because we get the idea that pills can solve most of our problems today whether they are physical or mental. God can take care of all of your problems. Granted, He doesn’t make you feel high like some drugs and He doesn’t give you the desires of your heart unless your heart is in tune with His first!

Just asking God for money doesn’t mean that you will get the amount you want but you may get the amount that you need. Our lives are not meant to be lived with the “stuff” that is all around us and in the world today. We are supposed to live by faith so that God can bless us and the works of our hands because it is by living by faith in Him that we glorify Him in everything that we do. Whether it is by being a carpenter or a painter or a preacher or a nurse, God can be glorified in everything that we do because we get up and give Him praise for giving us another day to serve others and Him while we are yet alive.

The praise of this world and the things which most people chase after in life do nothing to gain you access to heaven. It is only by the blood of Jesus and your belief in Him as your Savior which will allow you to stand in His presence and gain your reward of eternity. Seek out your Savior for your forgiveness and for your salvation while there is time because nothing on this Earth satisfies like knowing that you are forgiven and are eternally in His hands.

God will NOT fail!


Philippians 1:3-6: 3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

No matter what your circumstance in this life today, God has not and will not fail you. He allows some hard lessons to happen to His people at times but know that He is using this situation for your good and His glory. We don’t understand why He allows disease or health problems or even death in families but God has a reason. He knows the anguish of death and the unknowable victory which comes with a soul entering Heaven. We can’t see that victory from where we are but He can and does see it because He ordained it.

What sort of “good thing” can come from the death of a loved one? It can cause us to draw closer to God because He is the only One Who can comfort us and give us the assurance of our loved one’s place of residence in eternity. Is this a hard lesson for us to learn? Yes it is! Many times the crushing grief of a death in your family or mine will cause us to question God’s motives but don’t blame Him for what has happened. He allowed it for a reason and it is only known to Him until you draw closer to Him in your grief and sorrow. Is it hard to do when your only son or daughter is the one who was taken? Yes! No one but God or another parent who has lost in the same way can know that crushing grief.

There are no words of comfort and no drug or drink can numb the pain because when those temporary things wear off, the pain is still there just as harsh and terrible as it was at the beginning. Praying for those who grieve, whether they are close friends or acquaintances from school many years ago, is the best salve for them at this time.

Separate, but why?


Separate? Why?

There are two camps in the world today. One is on the side of religion and the other doesn’t believe in any intelligent design or god. Granted, there is a fairly large gray area between those two and that is where many people have their ideas about who God is or who He is not or even whether there is a God at all. The limit of this could be shown by two mountain ranges and a deep valley between them. Our Savior didn’t teach this separation of beliefs so why did it come about?

With time stretching out since the crucifixion of our Lord and His promise to return, mankind has gotten some pretty “out there” ideas about how to serve Him or not. So, in truth, it is our ideas and our desires which have caused all of the divisions between believers and non-believers. Then there are divisions even in churches and denominations also caused by us.

The message of salvation is still the same as it was, to begin with. Believe in Jesus, ask Him into your heart, repent of your “old way of doing things” and follow Him.

Truthfully, believing is the biggest part of accepting Jesus as your Savior. Just think about the day that Jesus was crucified. One of the thieves believed in Jesus as the Savior and asked if He would remember him when He came into His Kingdom. What did Jesus tell him? “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise”.

We are not meant to be separate from God or in our belief about Him and our salvation, so what happened? In the past two thousand years, it has been our ideas and our desires to do things our way instead of truly following Jesus. We have tended toward the belief that “we know better” in our religious practices. Really? How could you possibly know better or more than God our Creator? He placed all of the stars in their galaxies and in the orbits where they are. He formed each of us in our mother’s womb and He knows you better than you know yourself. All of the universal laws and constants were put in place by God so how can we think that we are smarter than He is?

While it is true that many other religions are in the world and have been for thousands of years, God is still in charge of everything. Like it or not, He is the Creator and it is to Him that you will give an account of your life and your decision about your salvation. If you accepted Jesus as your Savior during this life, then it will be to Him that you will account for what you did with your salvation. Did you tell anyone about your Savior and what He did for you? Did you live your life as He would have so that others might see Him through your life?

Many things that we should do in our lives and being a disciple of and an evangelist in some way during our life as followers of Jesus Christ is the least we can do. I pray that many of you who read this will give Jesus a chance to be your Savior.

The night before…


Regardless of which day you believe that Jesus was crucified, the night before was His worst. It started out good with the meal with His disciples but then as the hours passed, He knew the time was getting closer. The time in the Garden of Gethsemane stressed Jesus to the point of sweating blood while He was praying. I mean, come on, sweating blood! You know that had to be some serious stress!

No, I’m not being trite with this. Jesus’ human side was truly scared and wishing, even praying that He didn’t have to go through with this. But, He did and He did it for you and for me and everyone else in this world. Why? Because His sacrifice and death on the cross was necessary to pay for ALL of our sins. He was the only man who could do this. Not the Pope nor any other religious figure in the past could pay for our sins because none of them could live a sinless life.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That is Who Jesus was and who He still is. So why do people have so much angst over His name? Is it because He claimed and proved that He is the Son of God? Maybe. His suffering was prophesied many years before He was even born and yet the prophecies all were fulfilled in His Life and His death on the cross and by His resurrection after three days. Regardless of how you calculate His death and the feast which was taking place, He still fulfilled the prophecies about Himself. No mere man could do that!

Jesus, Yeshua, the Son of Man and the Son of God is the only man who could be the Savior of the world and the only begotten Son of God! If this bothers you enough that you never want to read this again…then don’t. Walk away from His Spirit which is touching your heart and letting you know that you need Him as your Savior. It will be the worst mistake of your life if you do. Why do I say that? Because you have no idea if you will ever have the chance to give your heart to Him and ask Him into your life. We are not given a guarantee of a certain number of years on this planet. You or I may die tonight before the sunrises tomorrow.

Don’t turn away from His call in your life because that is a call you don’t want to miss. It is like a call from a “lottery” about a number that could make you rich, it will likely come only once in a lifetime. Don’t pass it up. Giving your heart to Jesus is more valuable than any amount of money you could win because in eternity the money you have here is worthless. Please, don’t turn away from Jesus.

Jesus gave His Life so that you could have eternity.

No one is an accident…


We are not accidents

Psalm 139

1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, a God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them, my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God doesn’t cause accidents in His creation and each of us is a person that He caused to come into being for a reason. He has a purpose for you and for me and for all of those on the Earth. What that purpose is only He knows. He has given each of us gifts and abilities to be able to glorify Him and to be useful to Him in His Kingdom. So we need to start acting like we have a place in His Kingdom. If you don’t want to have a place in His Kingdom, that is fine. He doesn’t force anyone to be a part of His design and His will for His creation. Our God and Savior is the only pathway to Heaven, there is no other. Seek Him while you can find Him because when the shout comes and the dead are raised incorruptible and the church rises to meet Him, the easy time of coming to Jesus will be over. The time of “Jacob’s trouble” will be upon the world and giving your heart to Jesus will carry a death sentence soon after. I pray that all of you will be counted among those who rise to meet Him in the air. Amen

What could you do?


If your life was going to come to an end and you knew it, what could you do about your eternity? Do you know where you will spend eternity and are you sure of that?

Truthfully, there is nothing that you can do on your own to gain an eternity in heaven. The only pathway lies through Jesus and your acceptance of Him as your Savior. Repentance from your sinful life and turning toward Him to follow Him the rest of your life is the only way. Regardless of what you have been taught or what you may have heard, Jesus really is the Way, the Truth and the Life and nobody comes to the Father except through Him.

Our idea of righteousness, whether it is through religion or our own works, is nothing. It will not bring you into heaven but it will bring you into judgement. You will stand before God and Jesus to give account for your life and your reasons for your decision to live the way that you did. If you gave your heart to Jesus and repented of your sinful ways in order to follow Him until the end of your life then the meeting will go very differently. I can’t tell you exactly how it will go, but in the first instance you will be sent to hell. If you belong to Jesus and your life reflects that, then your sins are covered and your will be allowed into Heaven.

What is your view of Scripture?


For many people today it seems that God’s Word, the Bible or Scripture has no real meaning for today. It is even more outdated than the Constitution of the United States and if you are speaking of its age you would be correct. But God’s Word is alive and speaks of a future which hasn’t happened yet in some of its books. Even the prophecy which foretold of the Savior began all the way back in the third chapter of Genesis and it was nearly four thousand years before Jesus was born from that point of view in the past.

So, is the Bible an old, musty and outdated collection of books? No and it never will be. God’s Word written down by writers who were inspired by Him is just as relevant now as it was then but we have to interpret it through the more modern translations which have searched the Hebrew and Greek translations in order to know the modern meanings. Is it an old book? Yes but it is not one which is useless. There are Truths contained in it along with God’s Wisdom which is above the wisdom of man. That doesn’t mean that it is too hard for us to understand because a child can understand it.

What it does mean is if we are to understand God’s Word then we should study it and learn from it more than one or two thirty to forty-five minute sermons in a week’s time can give. Learning from God’s Word is a lifelong process of reading and study just as living in this world is. You cannot live in this world without water and food usually more than once per day of your life. You cannot be a successful Christian without taking in some of God’s Word each day and studying it to the point of placing His Word in your heart. Because it is the Word of God which gives each of us the ability to withstand the temptations of sin and Satan.

Your own wisdom or mine cannot protect us from the world around us, only God’s Word can do this. Although, even God’s Word cannot protect you if you don’t know it well enough to use it. Like a sword or a gun, if you don’t know how to use them they are no good to you for protection and it is the same with the Word of God! Seeking His Wisdom and protection can only be done by learning from the Bible and that comes only with study and reading more than you can by going to church every once in a while. It is a daily process. The fault of some in the church today is being biblical without applying it to contemporary living and today’s “liberal Christians” live contemporary lives without Biblical principles to guide them. Although very few can balance these two ideals at the same time and do it successfully.

There is no way to do this if you don’t know the Bible well unless you can quote it by chapter and verse and be able to apply it in your daily life. Few people can do this who are Christians that attend church and read their Bible and those outside the church in the world haven’t a clue about it at all. Satan knows God’s Word very well and he can quote it to you if necessary which is why we need to know it too. I urge you therefore to study God’s Word so that you can counter any attack of Satan which is from a “twisted scripture” or one which has been changed to suit someone’s idea or their agenda.

Jesus is the only Messiah!


John wrote this in the first chapter of his gospel:

The Beginning

(Genesis 1:1-2)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Jesus is the only Way to get into Heaven. He is the Door of the Sheepfold. He is the Commander of the Lord’s army. The names of Jesus are listed in many verses of the Bible but the one name which John was writing about is “The Living Word”. Jesus is that and more but let’s concentrate on that for a few minutes.

The Living Word of God is the Creator and our Savior, it is only through Him and belief in His atonement for you and me and for our sins that we can enter into Heaven and it’s glorious vista one day. There is no other religion or cult or opinion which will gain you or your family access to God’s Heavenly Home. It doesn’t matter what you have done in this life, good or bad, but the decision to give your life to Jesus and to repent (walk away from the sinful life which you were living) is the only way to be granted access to Heaven.

There is no other name under Heaven by which man can be saved. Your eternal life is before you and whether you make that decision in this life or not determines where your eternity will be. Accepting Jesus as your Savior when you feel the conviction of the Spirit brings you into Heaven, rejecting or refusing to accept Jesus will give you an eternity in hell.

God is…


Oh that I could adequately fill this writing with all of the descriptions and attributes of God. He is described as All Powerful and Knowing. He is the Creator of everything. He is Love and the Finisher of All that is. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Lover of our souls and the Pillar of Fire and Cloud. He was the Burning bush and the Finger that wrote the Commandments. God is.

There are so many descriptions of His awesome power and His gentle love for His Creation until it is hard to write this. God loves us and all of His creation not because of His needs but because of His Glory which comes through when we see His creation for His Glory.

Your life and mine bring glory to God when we acknowledge that He is and always has been in control. Your life and your accomplishments are possible because of His blessings in your life and they are not because of your own power but because of His grace toward you as well. God is much more than our Savior and our Creator but until we give Him the honor and the glory that He deserves many of us just consider Him as being the Intelligence behind evolution or the creation and nothing more.

He is much more than I can describe in a short article here. A better description of Him is found in His Word, the Bible. All of His attributes and His power are demonstrated in the Word and will be even more evident when the time of Tribulation comes upon the world soon. I pray that many of you who still question God and His power will seek Him out as your Savior before that time of testing and wrath comes upon the world because even though it won’t last but seven years it will be hell on Earth.