Category: Accountability

Do you preach?


Actually, I do. I was called to be a preacher about seven years ago, and this unique part of the Christian religion is imperative for all of us who believe. Each of us was also given a command to go into the world and tell others about what Jesus has done for you. In this instance preaching and telling about your salvation sound very much alike, but they are different. In many ways they are very different.

Consider this: Jesus came to his disciples teaching and preaching the Word of God. Sometimes He did it with parables, then sometimes He used examples from Scripture. Then at other times, He healed people in ways which couldn’t be explained except by the acceptance that He was and is the Savior, our Messiah, the One Who was to come and save not only Israel but the whole world!

preach-the-wordTelling others about your salvation and what Jesus saved you from is a good thing and we are commanded to tell others when they ask us about our joy in Christ. Preaching is telling others about the good news of Jesus and why He came to save us from our sins and our sinful nature. To change us from the inside out and make us become more like Him in our nature and in our lives. To do the things which He would do if He was here. That is why He came, that is why I preach even when I am just writing it down like I am here!

God loves each of us in a way that we cannot understand because He has loved us from the beginning and even before. We are loved by our Creator even if we don’t return that love and that is what makes it hard for us to grasp. To our human mind, that kind of love doesn’t make sense. But, if you look at the first few days of Creation in Genesis, those days don’t make sense either. God said “Let there be Light!” and there was. He didn’t fashion a star, like our Sun, to make that Light on the first day but Light was there!

All of the other days in that first week of Creation, He commanded the fish in the sea and the birds of the air to come forth and they did! He called forth the plants and trees and all kinds of animals and creeping things and they were there! Then the only creature which God made with His hands was mankind. We were not called forth out of the mud, God fashioned Adam from the dirt and breathed the Breath of Life into him and he became a living soul! If God didn’t love us, why would He get His hands dirty while making us?

Because He is God! He could’ve called forth man from the mud and made male and female like He did everything else…but He did not! Man is special to God and in the grand scheme of things, His plans for us include being fruitful and being married. He also wants us to live to please Him and to worship Him. He doesn’t need us, but He wants us to need Him. God is a Triune being and He and the Son and the Holy Spirit are capable of being and doing anything necessary for the universe to keep going and to create whatever they wish.

Life is a gift from God and every good thing which we have is a gift from Him, even before we come to realize that we need Him. If you haven’t given your heart to Him and asked Him into your life I pray that you will do so soon. Our world is dangerously close to the edge of history which Jesus told John about almost two thousand years ago. Read the book of Revelation and see if some of its warnings don’t sound like the news today. Read Matthew 24 along with the news and see if that doesn’t sound eerily similar. It sounds that way because it is prophecy coming true in our time.

How much more will it take?


In the news, online and on TV or cable, we are hearing about so much violence in our world. There are shooters and suicides, bombs and bombers, stabbings, wars and skirmishes and “actions”. When will all of this come to an end? Will it ever come to an end? I have noticed the news for at least fifty of my fifty-six years and the Vietnam war was going on when I was six. A few years later Martin Luther King was also murdered in 1968 and then Robert Kennedy was assassinated by a white man. There was violence and riots and all sorts of protests going on, about the war and about the murders of those two great men.

So much violence and hate seems to be in our culture today. Not just in America but around the world. Fighting about religion or someone’s right to be what they want to be even if it isn’t natural. All kinds of vile words being spewed online through social media sites, causing some people to take their own lives because of “cyberbullying”. How much more can our culture, our nation or even the world itself take?

Is there no way to bring peace to the world?

Yes, there is but it will take turning to God and repenting of our sinful ways and lives. Is it possible today? I’m not so sure actually. There doesn’t seem to be enough people who are interested in saving their lives into eternity, let alone believing in Jesus! The only way to bring peace to the world would be for most of the population of the world to become Christians. Of course then we would start arguing about which doctrine to follow. Likely this would even set off some wars and killings as well, so even that wouldn’t work without the Lord returning to rule for 1,000 years!

ourlovingsavior

We don’t have gods, just One God


Some people think that Christians worship three gods. But..if you look at the passage where Jesus got baptized, He is there (of course), the voice of God says that “this is my Son” and the Holy Spirit comes to Him in bodily form of a dove.

The Holy Trinity in one place at the same time, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit, not three gods but One God in three forms and all of them just as much God as the other! Our Creator isn’t limited to one form nor is He limited in any way that we can understand.

Yet, we try to put limits on Him and believe that He has emotions and the same sort of limitations which we have. We who are His Creation, attempt to make the Creator in our image and in our limited abilities, so that we can understand Him and believe in Him. Do you understand that God is bigger than we can imagine! He created this universe, not just the little ball of mud that we live on.

There are no “gods” in religions on the Earth, those entities who caused men to dream of things and see a form which looked like an angel, they are devils and demons and their leader is Satan! He is the one who brought man to the tree which God told him not to eat of, even so God knew that this would happen as well. Jesus is the “seed of the woman” spoken of in Genesis, the One Who is the Living Word and the Son of God!

The time is coming and will come soon, when many will see the end of the age and the church will be taken from this world. At this time, a man will come into power who is very persuasive in his speech and he will be given more power than any man on Earth has ever held. This is spoken of in Revelation in the Bible and it is not my prediction, but prophecy from God.

PromisesfromGodsWordMake sure of your salvation, seek out Jesus the Christ and salvation through Him, don’t put it off thinking that you have plenty of time. Many who thought this in the storms which have come to America recently thought they had time as well. We have some storms which are coming still and they are worse in magnitude than anything that nature can create from wind and sea.

Our lives, with all of the stuff which we put so much of our life and our energy into, are pitifully short on this Earth, particularly in reference to eternity which awaits us. Seek out God and His Son for your salvation because you do not know when your last day may be. We are not given a set number of years to live. No one knows that they will be alive, even in the morning after tonight’s sleep. Please make sure before the time of testing comes on this Earth because it will affect the whole of the population not just a few million but everyone who is alive at the time!

Living on borrowed time


Life is given to each of us to live in a way that seems right in our own lives, at least that is what we think anyway. God places each of us here so that we can fulfill part of His plan for our lives. The problem being that we have to find out which part and how to do it. Sometimes we don’t come to know Him early enough in our lives, but I imagine that is part of His plan too. Then there are times when we push Him away or we don’t agree with Him on our part and how it is to be done.

We seem to act as if we are the ones being inconvenienced by God’s plan when it is His plan which is being placed on a back burner so to speak. Although, God can work around our stubbornness too, it just may take a bit longer but His purpose will be done by and by. Why did I pick this topic or subject to write about today? Because a wonderful songwriter died today. Don Williams.

I am not going to get off topic and spout how wonderful his songs were or what a melodious voice he had, because if you have ever heard him sing you already know it. It’s just that our world is near the end of the age and many of those who influenced my life are already gone on before me. I makes me kinda nostalgic a bit for the days of youth when we all thought we had as much time as we would ever need.

The problem with that thinking is that each of us soon finds out that our time is getting shorter almost on a daily basis. The older we get, instead of slowing down so we can enjoy it, time seems to speed up and get faster as we age. It also seems to be happening to our world too. Most of the prophecies concerning the time prior to the Tribulation have already come to pass. All of the “little details” like the weather going crazy and other nonsense which is supposed to be happening around us, you see and hear that on the news every day.

I don’t mean that we should jump up and down in the street shouting “The end is near!!”, “Repent while you can!”, but honestly the world will soon find out that every word and every punctuation mark in God’s Word will be fulfilled whether you or many millions of others believe in it or in Him! The problem today is that the world and those in it don’t want to hear how God’s Word is coming true before their eyes if they would just recognize it, but even when Jesus was standing in front of them the religious leaders didn’t recognize their Messiah.

If you feel that you need Jesus, please seek Him out soon and learn as much as you can about Him. Give your life to Him so you won’t be left to endure the horror which is coming.john317

So much, yet…


It seems that in our culture today, we have so much and yet we still complain. Now, I am not saying that we are similar to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt, but they complained about a lot of things too. We have so much in the way of possessions and stuff but it is all disposable and we still want more! Why?

It just seems that we are never satisfied with what we have. God has given us a planet that is moderate in its temperature range, we have gravity to keep us firmly on the ground. There is air to breathe and our days are split between night and day so we have time to work and sleep too. So why do we complain about life and the stuff that we have or don’t have?

We should be thankful for our family and our health, if we are enjoying good health. If you have a job, be thankful for that. Life and living for Jesus is so much more than…stuff! Living for the Lord and with Jesus in your life is so much more than things that we see and have to deal with each day. But, it seems that we are never satisfied with life, particularly our life if we have given our hearts to Jesus.

We look around at all of the stuff that others have, some of whom we think are not followers of Jesus and some who are. We question God, like Job did in his time of testing, and we ask “Why can’t we have xxxx car or this huge house and a bank account to go with it?”.

The answer is the one which Jesus gave to His followers about the rich man. “It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.“; my quote is a paraphrase but you get the meaning of it. I qualify this by asking a couple of questions: Does a wealthy man need anything? He can have anything that he desires, so why would he want God in his life? Is a wealthy person ever hungry or thirsty? Not unless it is forced upon him I’d wager, so why would he or she ever hunger for Jesus and the freedom that being a Christian affords?

Wealth and so-called privilege can give a person much that the world has to offer. But, being a Christian and living your life as one who is a follower and a disciple of Jesus is not something that the world nor the wealthy would desire. Until, somehow, they are brought to a point of true and desperate need which their money cannot give them. Or if they grew up in poverty and became wealthy later in life and they knew that it was the blessing of God which brought their wealth, which they cheerfully gave to help others in need.

Because, until someone gets to the point of realization which shows them Who they truly need, it doesn’t matter if you have money or not, you will not seek out Jesus for your salvation. Until you know that there is nothing which you can do for salvation or healing or whatever you may feel that you need, not in this life but to bring you into God Presence, you will not seek out any knowledge of God nor will you look for salvation in Jesus.

The end of the season


Summer-to-FallWe have finished the summer season, although here in the Deep South, the heat will linger on until sometime in late September or possibly through October. We only have two seasons anyway, less heat and more heat. Usually with the “more heat” we also get more rain and more humidity too, so late spring for most everyone is sticky for us and it only gets more sticky as the summer goes on. Life, of course, goes on. We have mildew and mold in places where it should not be. After April or early May, it is not enjoyable to watch the Braves play baseball in Pearl because even sitting in the stands you are wringing wet with sweat (which is why I never buy season tickets).

Yep, seasons in the South are rarely the kind that you can actually enjoy outside. You just trudge through the humidity and the ticks and the mosquitos and hope you don’t come down with West Nile virus or Lyme disease. Living in Mississippi is not exactly a challenge as much as it is an ongoing ordeal in humidity. By now, you have probably noticed that I don’t really like the humidity here. Even though I have lived here since I was five, I would much rather live in the Midwest.

But, economics and all that goes with it demands that I stay put so I do. The Bible says that we are placed in the world to be light and hope for others. We are also to be the voice of Jesus in the places where we live and work, by telling others about Him when the situation comes along. So why aren’t we doing this? As members of the church and the body of Jesus Christ on Earth, we are supposed to be His feet and hands and mouth by doing what He would do and going where He would go and telling others about the grace offered to them through God’s grace.

This is the commission which He gave to His disciples when He went to Heaven and it is still valid for us today. As scripture says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14

We are supposed to be those who tell others about Jesus so that they will have a chance to know Him and come into eternity when He returns. If we don’t do this when we have the chance to do it, then it will fall on each of us as taking away some of our rewards in Heaven. Those who have been near you who don’t know about Jesus, especially if they have asked you about Him, are the field which is white unto harvest.

We are supposed to tell them so that God can have more people brought into His Kingdom. You don’t have to preach or be a missionary, just tell anyone who asks what He has done for you in all things. This medium is a good way to do this but you should be ready when someone is seeking the reason for your joy.

Our bad side and our good side


During disasters, which seems to be the only time, much of the goodness comes out in people. You see people helping others, regardless of color of skin, without regard to nationality or political party. Nobody asks if you are a Democrat or a Republican, how much money do you have or where do you work, but when people are in need of help, people do show up to help.

There are some exceptions of course. During a hurricane or tornado or rather afterwards, there will also be some who show up to see if they can find something for free. The come to steal from people and from businesses who have left their home or business because of the flood waters or the damage caused by the tornado. While the law enforcement can’t be everywhere, that is when these people take advantage of the situation and steal electronics and anything else they can carry away.

Two sides of society which are present in almost every place where there has been some disaster to happen. The only time I have never seen anyone doing these things is in areas where fire has destroyed homes and woodlands and grasslands. Why? Mostly because there is nothing to steal and what may be found in cars and homes after a fire isn’t worth stealing.

we-are-not-born-racist-people-learn-to-be-racist-6800532.pngWe need more helpers in America and around the world too. More people willing to help, regardless of the cost or any expectation of reward. It does seem that there are more of the helpers than there are of the looters and those who were shooting at rescuers. But honestly, there shouldn’t be anyone stealing during a time like the people in and around Houston are having!

God loves all of us and the times that we have to live through tragedies and disasters are just proof that Satan is in control of much of our world. The storm and the damage it caused may be used by God to bring out the best of us, regardless of the damage that it caused. Does God use disasters like this? Of course He does! There were far more good stories which have come out of this than bad ones, so far.

Seek to do good for people, like Jesus did, no matter the cost. Your reward for this will be in Heaven and in the smiles and the joy that you feel in helping others who truly need your help.

The message is true!


Nobody's mad but youThis message about Satan being angry or rather furious with Christians is true, but we are protected by the blood of Jesus. He cannot harm us at all! He can cause us pain and heartache by the death of loved ones, he can also cause our death, if God allows it, but he can do nothing without God saying that he can.

Long before Jesus came, Satan attacked Job and took everything from him to try to force Job to curse God or lose his faith in God. It didn’t work. Learn from Job and from the rest of the Bible because the Truth is absolute whether you like it or believe it at all!

Life is hard enough living day by day without understanding that Satan HATES you immensely! Yes, he would love to take your life, your children, your job, and everything else that you have away from you and then gloat in watching you suffer through it all! In Christ we have an advocate and a Protector that will stand with us through it all. That doesn’t mean that we won’t ever have trouble as Christians, but we will have His Strength and His Presence in our lives to help us get through any trouble that we have.

Some people call Christianity a “crutch” or a weak-minded way of dealing with life. Some even try to tell others that what we believe in is a lie and that the disciples just made it all up. Let me ask you this: if someone was going to put you to death by fire or any other means if you didn’t recant your belief in Jesus, would you recant? If you knew it was a lie you would.

That is why the testimony of the book, Foxes Book of Martyrs, is so powerful! Stephen wouldn’t have been stoned for a lie. There were many Roman soldiers who died because they became Christians. Many of the early church were killed in the arena by lions and other horrible ways for their faith! This has been happening for nearly 2000 years, and it is still happening today. Because, the testimony of the Bible and all of the Christians who have died for their faith shows that our faith is not in some made-up story or fantasy.

Jesus is REAL and He is coming soon, so you need to decide which so-called “lie” will you believe. The one where Satan tells you that all of it is hogwash and that you can rule with him in hell one day or will you believe the Truth of Jesus the Christ Who came and paid the price for your eternal soul?

A church reborn!


The church today is nothing like what Jesus intended for it to be. Why is that? Have we not heard from the Bible or have we been sitting in church but not listening?

Let me give you a quote from A.W. Tozer who wrote The Crucified LIfe:

The late Dr. A. W. Tozer, author and pastor, said, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

In our churches today, whether they are Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian, would anyone notice is the Holy Spirit was not present? In some churches, I don’t believe that anyone would notice at all. Is it possible to follow Christ so closely until there is little difference in your actions and deeds? I am not sure that any church would want to be revived enough to live that close to Jesus.

The things of God, which we hear about from our reading the Bible and from the sermon on Sunday, are what make up our faith and our trust in Him. We also delight in the Lord because of His goodness and the value of the treasures that are in our Heavenly home and not the one that we occupy here! When we value those things that God values then we stand with Him, spiritually, in heaven even when we are still here. We walk with Him here and seek His revealing on Earth and we will live for eternity.

Paul wrote about this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1:

1 Thessalonians 1

King James Version

1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers;
3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.
6 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.
7 So that ye were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.
9 For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

VineandBranchesIf our church, regardless of the denomination, is to be reborn then we must do it soon. Repent and ask for God’s forgiveness of our arrogance and our prideful ways. We have been prideful for many years in the church, thinking that our doctrines and our bylaws govern us and get us within reach of Jesus. That kind of thinking will send many straight to hell.

Why? Because no amount of works or money or “wisdom” from a preacher or a committee can equal the wisdom of God’s Word! Changing words around or even taking them from Scripture and calling the “new bible” an improved “translation” is also a good way to lead many into hell. That is an eternity which I don’t want to be responsible for, nor do I want to go into eternity without Jesus.

If you are a preacher and you are teaching your congregation that your doctrine or your “new translation” is the way to reach Heaven, please realize that you are taking a whole church into an eternity with Satan. You will be held responsible for leading them down the wrong path and you will suffer for it regardless of your belief in the eternal nature of Hell itself!

So much disagreement!


5thingsgodwantsyou2knowWhy do we disagree with each other so vehemently? It seems that it doesn’t matter what religion or race or political party you belong to at the time, our differences of opinion and culture divide us so much that we can’t seem to find any common ground to work on!

Why!?

As a species and as actually ONE race being human beings or Homo sapiens if you want to get scientific about it, our skin color and our hundreds of different cultures divide us to the point of barely being in any kind of collective community! It seems that, if you ask a question on one side of a room and then ask the same question on the other side, you will come up with many, many different answers to that same question…even if it is a simple one!

We just can’t agree on much at all, except what color the Sun is and that grass is green when it has water.

Is it possible for us to work around those differences or maybe work through them in order to find a way to get along long enough to NOT kill each other over ideology or religion?

Truly…in the world today, with all of the “politically correct” police all over the place, I doubt that we would ever fix any of the problems which are in our society now! When people are being told that they can’t say certain things or they will be put in jail for using the improper pronoun in reference to a person, regardless of their “born gender”; I don’t see any possible way of getting our world into a more compassionate and tolerant world.

Search the scriptures to find the wisdom of God in all of this. Because His Word is the only truth which is actually True. I understand that is a statement which is intolerant and narrow-minded but consider the same restrictions from Islam toward many of our freedoms and the lifestyles of people in the world? They don’t just preach and tell unbelievers that their sins according to Allah and the Holy Koran are wrong, in many instances the infidels are shoved from a rooftop or in some other way killed!

Has a Christian or Jewish church or temple ever done such a thing? I realize that during the 1500’s and 1600’s there were beheadings and wars and things such as that by the “church” of the time, but I am speaking of now…today!? No, the church of today doesn’t condone any kind of killing because you are sinning against God, because Jesus said that we are to love our fellow-man as He loved the people around Him. You cannot love someone and kill them!

Seek Jesus out in your situation and in the lives of those around you. Tell them about His love for them and that it is available to all who will believe in Jesus! Do this while there is time and breath in our bodies, because when the Trumpet of God sounds it will be too late.