Category: when you feel His call in your heart

Trust in the Lord


Psalm 31: 14-16 says: “But, I trusted in the thee, O Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me for thy mercies’ sake”.

Why should you trust in the Lord? Because being a truly changed Christian requires it. Trust is also another word for faith or “having faith in”. God is our Creator and our Redeemer and the faith that we should have in Him for our salvation is necessary for that salvation to be real. If it is not there, then your salvation may not be real either. Going a bit further, trusting in Him is the only way to know God and His Son as your Savior.

So, why do people in our world today seem to believe in things that have no eternal meaning? It seems that people will believe in many things today that have no basis in fact at all and cannot be proven scientifically but they will argue with you feverishly over their “beliefs” even when they cannot prove any of them. Jesus came to the Earth to bear the sins of the world and to pay the penalty for all of humanity. Whether you believe in Him or not or even if you have accepted Him as your Savior or rejected His offer, He still came and paid the price for your soul. That is how much God values your soul.

Even if only one other person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God knows who you are and He values you enough to pay your way into heaven by believing in Jesus for your salvation. When you feel broken and hurt and depressed, God is there waiting for you to turn to Him. He can heal your heart and the problems that are weighing on your life. He can give your life a meaning that it has never had before, regardless of your background or any of your sins in your life…He loves you!

God does this for us


Are you grown up?


When you are younger, growing up is not easy. Oh, we enjoy recess period at school and we enjoy our summer breaks but there are many things that we don’t enjoy. Homework, tests, pop-tests, falling and skinning your knees…all of these things are hard and hurtful at times but they help us to learn. So…are you grown up? Some of us are and some of us are keeping back some part of our life to keep from being grown up into maturity.

Have you given your life to Jesus and asked Him to come into your heart to be your Savior? Have you surrendered your life to Him fully? A fully surrendered life is given as a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of your entire being to the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we rightfully belong. He paid for your salvation and mine through His death, burial, and resurrection and since He is our Creator, He is entitled to our whole being. But, we must voluntarily give it to Him.

This is something that we have a very hard time doing. We are individuals and we enjoy being free to do as we please. But when you give your life and your heart to Jesus, you have to give Him the whole of yourself, not just a part of you. This is what I’m talking about when I mentioned being “grown-up”. Maturing as a Christian is not an easy task because we want to have control over many parts of our lives. We need to seek His counsel in every part of our lives not just our spiritual lives. He wants to be involved in all areas of your life. Why? Because He loves us!

The problem comes because we live our lives daily for many years without thinking about Jesus. We go to grammar school and sometimes junior high without considering Him or even His ways. Sometimes we may even live through college and into our “adult” life without Him fully in our life. I don’t understand how people can live like this but it seems that many do. Living a life that is surrendered to Jesus is a conscious, deliberate decision and it is one that we must do every day. It isn’t easy but it can be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. Doing this or trying to do this on your own will not work.

The little planet that God created for us to live on is the focus of His attention in the universe. Why? Because the people that He chose to bring the Messiah into the world through are here. God created the universe and our little planet too. He created the stars and galaxies and all of the life that is on our little planet and He did it to make life interesting. When sin was brought into our world it corrupted all of creation, not just mankind. That is why there are so many problems and things that are not right in the world. One day in the future, the corruption that sin caused will be taken away. What a wonderful day that will be.

Seek Jesus and learn to be His disciple every day. Grow up in your faith and in your walk with Him so you can be more useful to Him and His Kingdom. It will take time but it will be worth it.

Do you have faith?


God grants each of us a “measure of faith”. When we are called to become a child of God, adopted into His family, He gives us the faith to believe in His Son for our salvation. Without faith, we cannot believe! Even the smallest amount of faith will enable you to do more than you can without it.

Faith is something that Christians have that many people don’t understand. Some of us who have been Christians for a few years don’t understand it. We know we have it or we wouldn’t have given our hearts to Jesus. We know God gave it to us because without it you can’t please God or come to know Jesus as your Savior. The Bible says that “faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen“. With faith in God’s Word and in Jesus, we know that His Word is Truth and that no power on Earth can keep God’s promises from coming to pass.

Jesus is coming back. There will be a day of judgment on those who have rejected Him. There will be a 1,000-year reign of Jesus on Earth as our King! God always keeps His promises. It really doesn’t take faith to believe this, but it helps. We are near the end of the “Church age” and the very next event will be the “rapture” (taking away) of the Church, the Bride of Christ. When that happens, the whole world will know that God’s Word was telling the truth. At least, those who have ever been in church or heard a sermon about this will know. Everyone else will be blaming it on aliens or swamp gas or who knows what else.

I pray that everyone who reads this will be part of the Bride of Christ because the world is going to become more like hell on Earth after we are gone. Seek Him out and read the Bible. Learn about Him and ask Him to be your Savior. It won’t be impossible to become a Christian after the church is gone but it will be very dangerous to be one.

Do you listen?


When I was a lot younger than I am now, listening to adults give me advice was the last thing on my list of to-dos. I imagine it was the same with most of you who read this blog. When you were a teenager adults didn’t know anything. As you get older you realize that they did know more than you did at the time but you didn’t want to listen to them or their advice.

Lots of times we are the same way in the church. When we are there we may hear what the sermon is about but we don’t listen to it very well. How do I know this? Because I did it myself. If you asked me on Monday what the sermon was about on Sunday morning, I couldn’t tell you. Actually, I could tell you this time. It was about the vision that Ezekiel had of the angels who marked those in the city who were concerned about the sins of Israel and those who were not. Those who were not even included some who served in the Temple and it was those who were killed.

God cares about everything that we do but He is very interested in the things that we care about that align with His. When you love those things and people that God loves and hate those things that He hates, then you are more like Jesus which is what God desires for us as His followers. Life is promised to those who follow Jesus’ ways and do the things that Jesus told His disciples to do.

When I see the news today and hear the things that are going on today, the only conclusion can be that we are living at the end of the last days. I pray that you will seek to know Jesus if you don’t know Him as your Savior yet.

Your life in Christ


We need to be ourselves because Jesus called us to be His. He chose you. Not someone that you will become with more education or study. Although the studying and the learning will come with following Him, He called you as you are to be…well, you. Each of us has a specific trait that He needs and that the body of Christ, the church, needs. There is something that you can do or say that nobody else can. You can reach someone with His message that the pastor can’t reach. You can tell the story of how Jesus has touched your life and that will make a difference to someone.

Christ touches our lives when we believe in Him for our salvation but He also lives through our lives to take His message to others. His Spirit lives in you if you have believed in Him for your salvation and it is this life that others will be able to see. Taking His message of love and forgiveness to the world doesn’t mean that you have to go overseas to be a missionary. You can take His message to your family or to those you work around or work with every day.

When I said that you don’t need to have degrees to prove that you are serving God that is what I meant. All of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen but they had been to school at their synagogue. They had learned and even memorized a good bit of the Old Testament by the time they were teenagers. The Bible is the best book to teach us about God and about life too. God’s wisdom is contained in His Word so the more you know about His Word, the better you know Him. That is why I read through the Bible at least once every year from Genesis to Revelation. Then…I go back to the beginning and start over.

I used to wonder why people would do that but I found out that God’s Word doesn’t really repeat itself. You do read the same words every time but the message that your heart and your Spirit get from it is different every time. God’s Word is what we should read to learn what His will is for your life but it also is alive and it reads your Spirit while you read it. So your Spirit will receive the wisdom from the same words that you need right now. Just because you have read Psalm 23 many times, the words and the wisdom change when God sees that you need a different message.

God gives us all of the wisdom that we can handle and it is contained in His Word. His love for us is beyond anything that we can imagine or conceive in this life. On the day when we stand before Him, we will know the depth of His love and feel it too. If you don’t know Him as your Savior yet, I suggest getting to know Him soon.

Do you seek God?


There are some hard times coming to our world and you had best be seeking the One Who can strengthen you to get through them. Why do people think that they are Christians and rarely darken the door of a church? Many would tell me that they can worship Him just as well on a deer stand or on the bank of a lake fishing. The problem with that

is that most of us don’t think of God when we are doing those things. We are thinking of something else entirely.

God loves each of us and has desired a personal relationship with us from before we were born. Jesus told His disciples to seek the Kingdom of God first and all of these things will be added unto you. What did He mean by that? Some people interpret that as meaning wealth and riches will come to you but that is not what He was speaking about. Jesus was telling His disciples that all of their needs would be met as long as they were putting God’s Kingdom first in their lives.

So how do we put God’s Kingdom first in our lives? First, you have to give your heart to Jesus and ask Him to come in and clean up your heart. Then read God’s Word so you will know His voice when He speaks to you. Also, by reading God’s Word, you will learn His will for your life. I had many people ask me about knowing God’s will while I was a preacher and that is the easiest way that I know how to find it. God reveals His will for our lives not specific to each of us but in reading and studying His Word, then praying about what you have read. Especially if you don’t understand what you are reading…and most of us don’t.

If you are saved and the Holy Spirit is living in your heart, He will guide you and pray with you for understanding. He is your teacher through God’s Word and will give you the knowledge that you seek when you ask for it and it is needed for your calling. You may be wondering, “What calling?”. When you are called to be saved, God always has a reason for it and that is your calling, although you may not find out the specifics until later. He will reveal them to you. Seek Him through prayer by reading His Word and by studying His Word because He will reveal the knowledge that you need.

Being a Christian is not an easy job but the reward is well worth the trials that you will face. Jesus said we would face trials but He has overcome the world and He will equip you to do so too.

God loves you!


If you have never thought about that before now…it is the most amazing realization that you can have! The Creator of the universe loves you! Not just the human race but each one of you! Consider that for a moment.

God wanted to spend time with Adam and Eve in person in the Garden and He did for a while. The most amazing part of this story is that He is going to do it again! He has redeemed us through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, and the only part that we have to do to receive His grace and forgiveness is to accept Jesus as our Savior, believing that He did this for me and for you!

Isn’t that the most wonderful news that you could hear especially today with all of the doom and gloom in the media now? God loves you! He loves you whether you have accepted Jesus or not but He doesn’t care for the life that many of us lead every day. By giving your heart to Jesus and reading His Word and praying for strength to be His every day, you can be more like Him than you could possibly be on your own.

Living the life of a Christian is impossible without His strength and His Spirit inside you and you only get those when you come to Him in faith believing that He will do what He said He would do. By accepting Jesus as your Savior and confessing that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, you can be adopted into God’s family. Give Him a chance to show you how much He loves you in this life so you can spend eternity with Him after this life is over.

Praying, you are talking to the Creator


Without excuse


I thought of you when I read this quote from “God is Like a Geyser: 30 Day Devotional For When You Are Waiting on God or Geysers” by Chris Stanley –

“For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. – Romans 1:20 (Amp)”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/iDSO92h

I’m not sharing this to make money, because I don’t. I’m sharing it because we are without excuse when it comes to the evidence of God in His Creation.