Category: when you feel His call in your heart

Are you frustrated with God?


In our lives we do sometimes feel this way. Why has this happened? Why did my child die in that car crash? Why did my grandchild overdose on opioids? Why did I lose my job? The questions go on and on, but usually without an answer. At least we usually don’t get the answer that we truly want to hear. So we begin by blaming God for all of our troubles or we confront Him and demand an answer while we are ranting at Him in our prayer time!

The fact is that God doesn’t owe you or me any explanation about anything which is happening in our lives. Most of what happens in our lives could be explained as being allowed to happen by God but He doesn’t have to give you a reason or an explanation for whatever may be happening. Is it frustrating for us to have things like this to happen and then we can’t figure out why they happened? Yes, of course it is, but if you have read much of the Bible you will see that people who have faith in God and have placed their faith in His provision for their lives usually have that faith tested in some way. But before destruction comes to them, God will come in and save them to bring them back into fellowship with Himself. God is always on time but it is His time, not our idea of His time.

Many times this testing is allowed, such as the case with Job where Satan was allowed to take everything, including his health, from him just to prove Job’s faith in God. Job didn’t ask for this but since the question was brought up by God because He was proud of Job for being a righteous man, Satan said that Job would cast his faith away if God would remove His protection from him. But Job didn’t lose his faith. In fact by the time the book is over Job’s faith was increased rather than tossed aside.

So should we live in our faith like Job did? We should, but most people who claim to have faith in God would not keep their faith in the same circumstances which Job went through. In today’s world even the church and those who call themselves “Christians” who attend church services have little faith. They would blame God for their troubles and seek to fix their problems on their own and by their own strength. In today’s world they might succeed in paying of their debts and possibly regaining some of their wealth. But if your faith is in yourself and in your job or your business it will not last. God is the only Savior of mankind and it is He Who controls all aspects of life that we take for granted!

Seek and serve the One Savior, Jesus the Christ, because it is only by His grace and your repentance from your sinful ways, believing in Him for your salvation that you will see Him face to face in Heaven. He is the Door and the Good Shepherd and only through Him will we find peace and salvation for eternity. We cannot add any amount of worth to our salvation by the works which we do because He has already paid the price for each of us, the full price. All that we have to do is accept it as a graceful gift from God, believe in Jesus as our Savior and turn away from out old way of life to live in His Newness of Life through Him! Amen

We are ambassadors for Christ


Many people who claim to be Christians are not pastors or teachers or serving overseas as missionaries. They are just members of their respective churches. But…we are called to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ wherever we may be. At work, at home, at school, at the mall or at a restaurant eating out, if someone sees you blessing your food or any other action which might identify you as a Christian, then you should represent Christ in whatever capacity you can.

When we are called by God’s Holy Spirit to repent of our old ways and follow Jesus, we are also called into His ministry. This is not optional, it’s just part of being a follower of Jesus. The disciples knew it and everyone who knew them also knew that they were His followers. It is a ministry which doesn’t have a retirement date until you meet Him upon your death.

Does Jesus require us to do this for our salvation? No, it is not a requirement because He did all that was needed for you to be saved. It is up to you to accept the gift of salvation and atonement from Him when you feel the need for giving your life to Him. The Holy Spirit convicts you of your need but it is your responsibility to accept it and ask Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that He knows you can be. His ambassador wherever you go or whatever you do. That is your calling after you have accepted Him and truly given your life over to Him.

Salvation is not a sometimes thing and it isn’t something that you can choose to use when you need a blessing from God and then turn it off. True salvation is a change in your heart and soul because you KNOW that you need Him to change you into that person that He already knew about but you didn’t want to until the Holy Spirit convicted your Spirit of it through faith and by your accepting His Grace for your new life in Him. We are not born into the family of God, we are invited to join by God’s Spirit which convicts us of our need for Him.

Eternity is waiting for each of us and there are two different places where we will spend it. Heaven for those who give their lives and their hearts to Jesus and live a life of service and grace through faith in Him. The hell of separation from God’s Presence with the demons and Satan because you refused His grace and the salvation that only He can bring into your life. When we hear a message about salvation at church or a revival meeting and we don’t know Jesus yet, it is our responsibility to either accept it as the wonderful gift that it is or to reject it and go about our life as if we have all the time in the world. But nobody has that luxury.

The model prayer and it’s impact


Luke 11:1

1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The prayer which Jesus gave His disciples was and is the model of prayer for all of us to use in our prayer life. So why do I say “in our prayer life”? Because we are encouraged to pray not just when we need something or want something but to live in a spirit of prayer all of the time. Some people may think this isn’t possible but it really is.

This spirit of prayer is not praying constantly but the act of being receptive to the leading of God to be prayerful in all things and at all times. Being ready to pray at any time and for anything which comes to mind or even on your phone today.

The model prayer begins with “Our Father which art in heaven…” because Jesus was trying to bring God’s love down to a more personal, intimate level. Almost as if He really is our Father and in fact He is. He is our Creator and it is His mind and His hands which knit your DNA and mine together. Remember, He has known us since before the Earth was formed so He knows exactly what your talents are and your characteristics will be long before you are born.

God, our Creator, cares for each life which is sent to be born. It is our responsibility to raise those children to know their Heavenly Father and we need to be much more intense in doing so. Because the world and its education system will teach them all sorts of information which has nothing to do with God or His Son. Your life and mine would be very different if we had not learned about Him and if we aren’t careful, the next generation may be the last generation that knows anything about God, even in what is called the Bible belt.

Time…


Do you ever consider the time’s in which we live? Such as, why is everything happening in such mixed up ways around the world? Most of these aren’t even reported on the news anymore but they are still happening. What am I speaking of?

Miracles.

To most people in the world the miracles that occur almost daily are not special enough to be given “media coverage” but to the people that they happen to they really are. If you are thinking that I just switched from one subject to another I really didn’t. It is a fact that where we are living in our time and the miracles which are happening are linked together. How do I know this? Because the time in which we are living is referred to as “the last days”.

At no other time in the world could you get news and video from around the world almost instantaneously but in the last few years the Internet has allowed this. It is only because of the advances in communication and the networks around the world that the Christian message can be spread to all parts of the world as well. Miracles are also happening around the world but many aren’t being reported because they aren’t newsworthy.

Most “news” today is only reported on when it fits someone’s agenda or a narrative which they want to promote. Even if it is a media organization and they claim to be impartial many of their investors are not which drives the narrative for most of their stories. Christian news or anything which points in that direction is not really considered newsworthy by the mainstream media.

But…God is still at work in this world today bringing people to a saving knowledge of Him and Jesus the Messiah in record numbers, even in places where Christianity is considered against the law. Many people who have been persecuted for their faith in Jesus are turning to Him and drawing more people to Him than ever before because of the persecution in the Middle East.

So, are we living in the last days? According to most of the predictions and prophetic words of Jesus I believe that we are and many other preachers do too. Reading the book of Daniel and Matthew chapter 24 many of the descriptions sound very much like the news which you hear today. Rumors of wars and persecutions, diseases which even modern medical science can’t cope with, unrest in parts of the world that once was peaceful, lives being lost because of people’s lack of a true moral compass. All of these are happening today and have been happening for a while although it seems to be ramping up to levels that were unheard of a decade or two in the past.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek out Jesus as your Savior and read the prophecies in Matthew and in the book of Daniel with a prayerful heart and an open mind toward God’s plan. He will accomplish His will for this world, whether we like it or agree with it or not.

We are at the end of the church age. I suggest if you aren’t ready then you should get ready!

Are you listening?


God does speak to us today, but many people don’t know how to truly listen to Him. They ask, “How can I hear God speak to me?”. Well, if you would read the Bible, God’s Word, you would hear Him speaking in every verse of it. Sometimes He gives encouragement and sometimes He is rebuking you by His Word but He is speaking to you and to each of us. Sometimes we will search God’s Word until we find something that we like and we will say that God agrees with our position on whatever it is but that is not seeking His will for you that you trying to justify something that you know is wrong!

The funny thing is that God will let you get away with your justification until you realize that you truly made a mistake because it isn’t working out the way you hoped it would. Things are getting worse rather than getting better. You need to pick up God’s Word and seek His will for your life by prayerful meditation and reading with prayer so that you truly are hearing from Him and not your own “conscience” voice. You know your mind-voice can sound like your idea of God’s voice. You can convince yourself that you are hearing from God and all you are doing is talking to yourself. You can get pretty good at it too until one day when all of the “things” which your god told you to do come crashing down on your head and you realize, hopefully, that those were not God’s words of direction but your own.

How can you tell the difference? Because if you truly were hearing God’s voice and following His direction those “things” wouldn’t have crumbled to dust around you. If you truly were listening and following His directions like you thought you were…things would work out the way He intended for them to. It is a novel concept and it is shown in the Bible very clearly. When a prophet or king follows God and does the things which God tells him to do, the way He tells him to do it, everything works out wonderfully. But, when you try to inject your ideas or change things so that people will like you rather than following God’s directions there are consequences which follow and most of the time they aren’t fun at all.

Most of our lives are like that as well. When we are truly following God’s direction in our lives and not trying to do things our way all the time everything works out most of the time. I say most of the time because none of us follow His directions perfectly, but if we are listening to Him we try our best to follow Him. God expects us to follow Him and His directions when we are His and we have given our life to Him but if you don’t know Him or if you are being stubborn and ignoring His direction or His calling in your life then your ideas and your pathway will not be so easy nor will they work out the way you had hoped.

Seek His guidance and His direction by following Him and giving your life to Him because He paid for your sins on the cross. Is being a Christian easy? No, it is not because there are going to be temptations and situations where you want to do things your way or even go back to doing things like you did before you asked Jesus for His Presence in your life. I pray that anyone who feels His call on your life through reading this or even by a dream or hearing God’s Word preached will answer and ask Him to come into your life and change you into the person that He knows you can be.

God, where are You?


Have you ever asked God, “Where are You?” It is an apt question, but do you truly want to know where God is? Consider that He is everywhere, whether you believe in Him or not. The problem with us, as human beings, is that we think too much. We look around and see the world and everything in it and we don’t understand how all of the evil in the world could be happening if God cared. The thing is this: God does care and He loves each of us but it is our responsibility to follow Him in our lives. The peace He gives to us comes from knowing Jesus and having security in our salvation.

So, to concentrate on the question a bit more…where is God? He lives outside of our existence but He holds all of creation together by His power and His plans. He is near us all of the time. We cannot feel His touch or see Him but His attention never wanders far from us, even if we don’t believe in Him. God provided for the children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years and He does the same thing for us today. He gives each of us talents and abilities to be able to make a living in this world and He places us in areas that He knows we can excel in.

All of these wonderful blessings come mostly to those who do truly believe in Him and trust Him for their salvation. Does He watch over those who haven’t really made up their mind about being His in a personal way? Yes, He does. His call on your life is truly your choice although it takes some of us a little longer to realize that He is calling us. Because it is our decision to choose Him as our Savior. We are not forced into belief because we can’t be, and He knows the beginning and the ending too. He knows the day and the hour that you will accept His offer of salvation, but He doesn’t push it on you.

Love and trust are two important aspects of a relationship with Jesus and God and neither of these can be forced upon anyone. You have to want this relationship and know that it is right for your life because eternity is not possible without Jesus in your life. Jesus came and gave His life to pay the penalty for your sins and all you have to do to claim your eternal life in Him is believe in Him and repent (turn away from) of your sinful life. Then read about Him in the Bible and learn how to be more like Him until He comes again. Living with Him one day at a time and do it every day. That is how you find Him and He keeps you in His hand.

Can you have peace in your life?


You must believe that God is in control of your life and your circumstances, no matter what they may be. Otherwise, you will attempt to gain control of your life and your circumstances and there is no peace in the struggle which comes from each of us trying to gain control of things which we can’t control. Each of us tries to gain control of our lives and our problems even when we know that there is no way that we can fix things. But, that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Does your life or your problems exempt you from asking God to help you to gain control of them? Are your problems too big for God? How can that be when He created the entire universe! He can give you the strength to get through every problem and every circumstance in this life. There is no condemnation in God’s sight toward your unbelief or your problems if you have given your heart to Jesus.

Each of us must believe that His offer of peace for your circumstances is real and be willing to accept His offer in spite of our feelings to the contrary. We should fully surrender our life, mind, will and our emotions to Jesus as our Lord. Because if you don’t fully surrender all of your life to Him then you don’t have Him in your life as your Lord and Savior. If Jesus is not the source of your peace, then what is? Here is the scripture and the promise from Jesus which cements this in His Words:

John 14:27

26But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Living your life by the power and the strength of your faith in Jesus Christ is your service and it is the living of it in front of the world around you which is your witness for Him to every person around you. Everything that you do or say is witnessed by those around you, whether you think they are watching or not. If they know that you are a Christian then every little thing that you do or say is part of your witness. If you are a new Christian then your light isn’t very bright yet, but you are still responsible for those who are watching to show that Jesus truly is your Savior. The longer that you are a Christian with years of Bible study then you are more responsible for more of His Light.

Are you perfect? No, none of us are perfectly sinless and we can’t be! Are we going to slip up and mess up your witness to others? Probably. At one point or another, every one of us will make a mistake at some point in our life. It may be a willful sin or one which you decide that you are going to do, even if it misses the mark. Will your salvation be taken away from you? If your salvation was real and genuine with repentance from those sins, then it can’t be taken away. If you just felt a good feeling and said some words that sounded right, but you have gone back to your old way of life then you are likely not saved at all. Do those of us who are saved fail in our living our life for Jesus? Yes, but we feel the failure in our heart and we are convicted of it by His Spirit. We want to ask His forgiveness as soon as we can.

Don’t turn away from His call on your life. When you feel it, answer His call and give your heart to Him because you may not have another chance to do so.

Gone astray…


There are many parables which the Lord told to His disciples, but none was as poignant to me as the story of the prodigal son. He sounded a lot like myself, in some ways, except that I never had a father who could give me anything to “go into the far country” with. The church today sees this story as a representation of the forgiveness of God toward sinners and it does reflect that aspect of God since you could see God as the father who accepts his son back into the home after he has gone out partying for a while.

The practical part of this story is that all of us, Gentiles and Jews, have gone astray in some way or another. Whether we have asked God for our inheritance or not we have been blessed with life and with the talents and abilities to gain wealth (a wage by which to live). Are we all wealthy? NO! But if you see that God is generous toward those who love Him and only this, then you are missing His grace and His love for all of mankind.

God has never stopped loving us because we are sinners. He does exactly the same as some of us, as parents, do. He waits for us to “come to our senses”. When we finally figure out that we have gone astray and it is our own doing, realizing that we really need to repent and turn away from our destructive behavior then He is there waiting for us. Just as the father was waiting for his son to return home. Do we actually repent and go to Him in repentance today? Sometimes we do but there are still many in our world who just seek to “fill themselves with the pods” which everyone else is eating.

God gives us so many chances, just as He did with Israel in the wilderness, and yet we still turn away from Him eventually. Many times we will turn to Him and “repent” for a time, at least until things get better, and then we will maybe thank Him for getting us out of that jam and go right back to what we were doing before. Just as during the time of the Judges of Israel, every man did what was right in his eyes. The problem with doing that is that by being our own king or judge we are using our “wisdom” to live by and that is not what God intended for us to do.

We are supposed to walk with God each day of our lives. Begin the day with His Word and in prayerful humility, seek Him in everything that we do. Learn to have a spirit of thankfulness so that every good thing, no matter how small it may be, will move you to thank Him for it even if it might not feel like a good thing at the time. Thank Him anyway, because we can learn from the good and the bad lessons in every day of our lives.

“and to dust you shall return…”


God created Adam from clay, sculpted him and then gave him the Breath of Life, so why did he mess up so soon after? It wasn’t because of Eve, although many people do blame her. It was the tempting words of Satan and the seed of pride which was placed in his mind by Satan. Pride itself is the tap root of all sins, regardless of what sin it may be.

All of us are susceptible to the lure of pride and all of its children. No one is immune from sin’s touch or the consequences of it unless you belong to Jesus and you have His Spirit in your heart. I don’t mean that you will be able to live a sinless life because only He could do that. But you will have His strength to help you resist the sin which you are tempted with, if you will acknowledge Him as your Savior and lean on Him during those times when sin comes to pull you toward something that you know isn’t right.

Adam could’ve resisted but he didn’t and so could Eve, but she didn’t. It’s in our nature to be susceptible to sin but we don’t have to give in to it again and again. Living a successful Christian life is possible if we stay grounded and connected to Him daily! Not just once in a while or on Sundays, it has to be a lifestyle of living in the power of Jesus every day. When you get up, thank God for another day. As you go through your day, ask Him to strengthen you as you face your trials and temptations throughout the day. Then as your day comes to a close, thank Him for getting you through it and ask Him to strengthen you for tomorrow.

Do I do this every day? No, I’m not as faithful as I should be but I do thank Him for each victory during my day regardless of the nature of it. Some days I do better than others, some days I do forget to thank Him for the problems that come my way to test me. But, usually before the day is a total waste I do thank Him for His blessings on my family and for all of the good things which He has prepared for me, even if I didn’t see them today.

Unless we are called up to heaven before we die, all of us will return to dust but until that day comes I will praise the Lord and you should too.

Seek Jesus as your Savior while you can. Life on Earth is too short to lose eternity because you waited too long.

Jesus, God’s gift to you


God promised this gift from the beginning. When God told the serpent, “He will bruise your head and you will bruise His heel“, He was talking about the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ! This was the very first mention of the possibility of salvation in the Scriptures. God had all of us in mind when He said this.

In every book of the Bible, there is a type of Christ shown in some way through God’s work in the lives of His creation. Whether it is by the ark which Noah built which saved Noah and his family to repopulate the Earth or by Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt but rose to be second to Pharaoh in power. There are “types” of Christ all through Scripture. God brought this about so that when the people would hear the stories and learn what these men did or how things worked out for Israel, they would be encouraged and seek to know God better and to serve Him.

Jesus came to bring salvation and the possibility of knowing God to mankind. Whether you believe in Him or not is not the point. He accomplished His mission to humanity and it is up to each of us to accept this gift and believe in Him, repenting of our sins and following Him until He comes again. God doesn’t force anyone to believe or to love because they can’t be forced, only given freely.

Jesus came to us so that we would have an advocate with the Father and One Who had paid for all of your sins and mine and everyone else’s too. Even a child can understand that they have been forgiven and all it takes for you to have salvation and an eternity with Him is your belief in Him and repentance of your old life, “take up your cross daily and following Him“. Taking up your cross is essentially putting away your old life and your old way of living so you can faithfully follow Jesus. Won’t you consider doing so today?