He came to save you!

In the Bible, the words which point you toward faith in Jesus don’t tell you the whole story. Jesus, Yeshua, was and is God in the flesh. God came down to Earth to be among those that He created. Not to make us feel unworthy, although we are, but to show His love for us because we don’t deserve it at all. Humanity failed Him in every way and we are still failing Him. Oh, those of us who truly are His followers are at least moving in the right direction but the majority of people in the world tend toward apathy or even hatred toward God and especially Jesus.

We are human and we aren’t capable of pleasing God without having faith in Him. But, we aren’t born with that faith. When God calls us to know Him, He is the giver of the faith necessary to know Him. We can’t just decide to believe in Him one day, all of us are chosen by Him to be His. But it is still our decision to accept that invitation and many still refuse because they don’t want to give up their sins…their life without Him being a part of it.

So, why is this important? Because, whether you believe it or not, there is an eternity on the other side of your last breath here and it is your choice which determines where you spend that eternity. The Pope can’t save you nor will any other religious figure from any other religion. Only Jesus came to pay the price for your soul and for your sins and since He stands at the right of the Father in Heaven and is not in a grave somewhere, you have the chance to live into eternity with Him. But only if you choose to follow Him and ask Him to forgive your sins and give you the strength to walk with Him until your last day on this Earth.

Why is being a Christian and believing in Jesus as your Savior so important? Because of the eternity which is there if you don’t believe in Him for your salvation. If there is a heaven there is also a hell and it is spoken of in God’s Word many times as an eternal punishment. Not for just a little while or instantaneous vaporization! Hell was created by God to punish Satan and his demons who have hounded mankind for thousands of years. They have driven some people mad and they are the ones who caused all of these aberrant religions which dealt in child sacrifice and other abominations. They will do anything to point people toward any “ideal religion” which doesn’t believe in or follow God the Father.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus out as their Savior. In His Word, in a Bible-teaching church or Bible study. Any way that you can learn more about Jesus and His love for you and the fact of His Love for you that was so powerful that He chose to go to the cross and die for your salvation. One day soon the church will be taken from the Earth and there will be seven years of hell on Earth because of those who chose not to believe in Jesus for their salvation. I pray that you will not be here during this time but will be with the church in Heaven.

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.

How many times is “prayer”in the Bible?

It depends upon your individual translation of God’s Word but it seems to be around 600 times, give or take a few. Prayer is your lifeline to God Himself. It is not a channel that you can tune into just because you want to complain or because you want something. It is used in that manner much more than it should be though. If you consider Who it is that you are speaking to about your problems and your good days and your bad days you might decide that you need to thank Him that you are able to live another day.

God loves His creation and all of us are unique parts of that creation. Each of us is unique and there is nobody else on Earth like you. Someone may look a little like you but nobody else has your personality and your knowledge! Have you ever considered that? Most people, in my opinion, never seem to realize that fact. It seems that more people today want to be like someone else rather than being themselves. Mostly, they just want the fame and fortune that the person has but they never think about all of the problems that it would bring into their lives.

Prayer gives you a direct line of communication to the Creator and the Savior of your soul. There is no need of a direct line of sight because He can see you and, if you are a Christian, He is with you even now. The Holy Spirit came to live in your heart the moment that you repented and gave your life to Him. He communicates your needs and your life to the Father in ways which we can only imagine, even when we can’t speak or even know what to say. Prayer is that lifeline that never breaks and it is always available to you regardless of the distance you think you have moved away from God, He never moved away from you.

Jesus came to us, to the Earth, so that salvation and forgiveness could be possible for each of us. God reached down to us so that we could reach up to Him in repentance and humility and give Him our heart and our life because He gave His life for us first. Prayer keeps that relationship alive, reading God’s Word enforces His teachings in our mind and in our heart so that we can walk with Him each day assured of our salvation and our place in His Kingdom.

In our world today, many people think that because they believe in God and they pray to Him about things in their life that they are saved and they will go to heaven. Satan believes in God, as well as all of the demons of hell, but he is still condemned because of his pride and arrogance. Being a Christian is more than belief, it is submission to God’s leadership and His way of life. We are to put down our “old ways” and walk into a new life, forgiven and free from the sins which kept us from being fully alive in Christ. Through faith and prayer and submission to Him, we can be saved. But, if you have never felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit to bring you to that point…prayer only works when you ask Him for Jesus in your life and ask for His forgiveness of your sins.

Did people sin in the Bible? Yes, David was called “a man after My heart” by God but he committed murder and adultery against one of his best warriors. The reason for David’s place in God’s sight was that he knew what he had done and he asked forgiveness for it, again and again. There are many more examples of people in the Bible being human but God used them in His grand design anyway. God doesn’t give approval to our sins just because we don’t think they are bad. If your lifestyle or the way you live is against any of God’s commandments and you continue to live that way, even when you say that you are saved, you are only deceiving yourself.

Your future…

Have you ever thought about your future? I mean in eternity, not next week or next month. We are not guaranteed tomorrow or next week or next month but eternity for your soul is guaranteed. In either hell or heaven with God. It doesn’t matter whether you believe that there is an eternity ahead of you or even whether you believe that God is our Creator…eternity is still in your future.

Our works or our belief of God’s Word, whether it is true or not, has no bearing upon your eternal home. Just as your belief in gravity has no effect on its effect on you, whether you believe in God or not does not erase His Presence in your life and in your eternal home. While it is true that you must believe in Jesus for your salvation and repent of your sins there is no way that your lack of belief will get rid of the punishment if you don’t believe in Him!

God loves His creation and we are all His creation but if you choose to do things your way and live the way that you think is right for you and you choose to walk on your own pathway…God will let you do that too. Why? Because it is your choice to believe and be saved through Jesus Christ! God will not force you and you do have that choice but what will your eternity be like if you do live apart from Him? You don’t have control over eternity. You can’t raise yourself up from the grave. You are not god.

Why did I add that last sentence? Because there are some who actually believe that they are or will be a god. The operative word in that is “a”, you will not be God. He doesn’t share His throne with anyone besides the Trinity of Himself, the Son and the Holy Spirit because when one of Them is on the throne ALL of them are there! God loves you and the Creation which He has given us and He will raise you up on the last day. If you are a Christian, you will be with Him forever in Heaven but if you never accepted Jesus as your Savior you will be shown all of the times when you had a chance to accept Him and you did not! Then you will be sent to hell.

Being saved is not a choice that you make it is a calling from God Himself. He touches your soul and convicts you of your sinful life and when you feel it and know it then you seek out the only One Who can save your soul and heal that wound. There are no amount of works or money which will bring you into heaven because without Jesus as your Savior, you will be going to Hell. There are no gray areas or holding cells for those who haven’t made up their minds yet. You either are saved or you are not.

Life ahead

Are you prepared for life ahead of you? Most people today are not. Mainly because they don’t see much life ahead of them, particularly if they have a terminal illness or maybe they are advanced in years. But God says that eternity is in front of us even after this body is gone. Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would be with Him in Paradise that day. The cross and the death which it brought was not the end of life. Even though it was the end of the body, the Spirit would live on into eternity.

Most of us seem to have trouble preparing for retirement for the end of our working years (so we are told). Many don’t save up or invest enough to carry us into our later years and we miss out on the travel and the “golden years” as they used to be called. Nowadays people are working at Walmart or some other part-time job just trying to make it during those years after the job that they may have been lucky enough to retire from. Some don’t even get that luxury. They are laid off at such a late age until finding a job is next to impossible.

Your life with Jesus in eternity is something which we should be preparing for well ahead of the time, even when we don’t know when we may die. We should still prepare for it and we should start doing so as soon as we hear the gospel message and determine that we truly need Jesus! Many of us have been in church since we were children especially if we live in the South, the so-called “Bible Belt”.

But do we prepare for crossing over into eternity?

Unfortunately, most of us don’t consider our mortality until a near miss on the highway or when we get a disturbing diagnosis from our doctor. Until some of our friends begin dying before we do, death is just not part of our thinking process. Then when our grandparents and our parents die, we begin to consider that our life could end at any time as well. Even then some of us still put off any kind of preparation for eternity. I suppose we think that we will have time to do it just before the end.

The people killed on 9/11/01 didn’t have any warning that they wouldn’t be going home that night. People who are killed in car wrecks don’t have time to “fess up” before the car flips over or a truck hits them. Most of the time people who have a heart attack don’t even have the time to do more than die. The end of our life usually takes us by surprise. So much so until there is no way to prepare for it or the eternity which comes after it unless you have done so by giving your life to Jesus ahead of time. I pray that anyone reading this will seek Him out as their Savior today because tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

Love one another…

God told us this. Jesus commanded it. But…do we do it? Even as Christians or even a society which claims to be “Christian” in its principles, no we do not! If we did there wouldn’t be a legal way to kill your baby. If we did there would be fewer murders and rapes and other kinds of crimes against human decency and against God’s law which most of our laws were based on, to begin with. So, what happened to America?

The same thing which has happened to every other country, Christian or not. We want to do things our way, not God’s way. Even though history has shown that doing or living life by our ways and our wisdom has usually ended up badly. If you have ever read the book of Genesis, humanity doesn’t get too far before the inclination of their hearts was evil continually! This was only six chapters in from the beginning! After the Fall in the Garden, mankind didn’t waste much time before they had forgotten God almost entirely.

God’s laws are based on love. His love toward us and His command for us to love one another. But when we demand our own way and our own ideas about life and freedom to do what we want without His laws interfering, we are walking down a very slippery slope. Yes, it is permissible and easy to live with because when we are following our own ideas of “right” and not God’s law of Right and Wrong we are missing the Truth which comes from God.

In our world today people are willing to ignore God’s Word because they don’t believe it is the Truth. Many don’t believe that it is God’s Word, to begin with. Some even pick some parts of it to believe and then choose not to believe other parts which they don’t agree with! God’s Word is True from the beginning to the end and either all of it is the Truth or none of it is! So, picking some parts to believe and some which you don’t believe is not really an option!

That would be similar to believing that the Sun is going to come up tomorrow but not the next day or that gravity works for some people but not everyone. You can choose to believe or not believe in physical laws if you wish, but God put those in place for a reason. They don’t go away just because you don’t like them or you don’t want them to be true on a certain day or time. The Truth of His Word is the same. It is either true and absolute in its meaning all of the time or it isn’t God’s Word at all!

His Love for us is the same. It never is less than it was yesterday and it is never more for one person over another. God chooses those whom He will use and those that He won’t, it doesn’t mean that He loves one over the other. Yes, there is a verse which says “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated” but that doesn’t mean human hatred. God loved Esau too, just not in the same way and it was because He knew that Jacob would become the nation of Israel.

Read God’s Word and learn about Him because He already knows all about you and your capabilities and your usefulness for His Kingdom!

Common sense?

Have you ever wondered what happened to common sense in America? I have been thinking about it for a long time and it seems that the reason it has gone missing has a lot to do with our insistence that God is either dead or that He doesn’t care about us anymore. Of course, neither of those assumptions are true but with all of the crazy and mixed up things which are going on all over the world and in our own backyard, it does seem that we have lost it!

God loves us but I know He has a sense of humor. If He didn’t the Time of Tribulation would’ve already started by now. I implore you if you are searching for your Savior seek out Jesus in a Bible-teaching church. Read God’s Word and pray that God will reveal Himself to you so your soul will be saved from an eternity of punishment. You may think that there is no hell or even heaven but Jesus spoke of both and God’s Word speaks of an eternity of punishment for those who reject Jesus the Christ.

I am praying that there will be some people with common sense to seek out their Savior before the day which causes all of us to know Who He is and why we need Him. That day will be the day when every believer will be taken to meet Him in the clouds and those who have died prior to this day will be raised as well. When that day comes, the whole world will mourn and realize what they have missed. But…it will be too late for many on that day unless they give their heart to Him in truth before they die.

God is still in control!

The sun is still shining and the moon is still in its orbit. If they had actually been around 4.5 billion years, the moon would be a bit farther away from us than it is. There has been some research into the stars in our galaxy and the number of supernovas which have been counted and it doesn’t add up to the number which would be present if the amount of time suggested by the Big Bang is true and correct.

The universe was designed by God to support life and God is Life. Regardless of how out of control your life may feel at times, our Creator is still watching over you. Specifically, if you are a Christian and believe in Him for your salvation. Now, I am not saying that God doesn’t care about His creation outside of those who are Christians because He does. But, He knows which person will give their life to Jesus and which ones will not. That doesn’t mean that He chooses which people will be saved and which ones won’t but it does show that God knows your heart and which choice you will make.

There is a big difference between knowing which direction you will take and forcing you to take it because God will not force you to make one decision over another. Consider that the decision to follow Jesus is one based on faith and on the grace that you realize you have been given. Each of us who have given their hearts and their lives to Jesus knows the love which God has poured into their lives because of the gift of salvation. In the Bible, you can read about the depth of God’s love toward us and know that returning that love is not enforceable, it is made by decision of those to whom it has been given.

Giving love back to the Author of Love only makes it better and makes us feel His love for us even more. Sometimes it is a small gesture of love toward someone you may not know well. Sometimes it is a prayer or a hug to a friend who is going through a hard time. Being the hands and feet of Jesus in a world that is truly DESPERATE for the Love which He embodies is the kind of mission and ministry which all of us should try to be a part of. Sometimes it is only through prayer that we can make a difference or even through a post like this one which may bring hope to someone who feels that they don’t have any.

Each person who is a Christian knows someone who isn’t or maybe they have been away from the church for a long time. Invite them to church or to a Bible study, have coffee or hot chocolate ready to warm them up on a cold night. Because it is the little things that most people notice about us who follow Jesus, not the big show of the service or how beautiful the sanctuary is. Jesus didn’t preach in a beautiful church. Most of the time it was in a field or even at the beach and He was sitting on a boat. It was the love which He showed toward those who had little or none in their lives that got the most attention.

The end of the Age

Learning about this from our Lord Jesus Christ is easy, just read Matthew 24 or the book of Revelation. But…how many will believe what they read? There are many who don’t think that the Bible is even trustworthy much less the actual Word of God. My point is that we are truly living at the end of the age. Look at the news and watch everything that is going on around us. Then, read Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 and at the beginning of the book of Revelation. See how much of it actually does sound like it came from the news today, then make your decision.

Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? If you haven’t then you need to seek Him for your very soul depends upon it! God cares for and loves each of us, even when we are sinners. He knows which ones of us will hear His call on their lives and those who will hear it and ignore it. But you need to be seeking Him to find Him and that is what this post is about.

Eternity is ahead of you regardless of your eternal destination although you do have a choice of where you will spend eternity. God doesn’t send you into hell, that is your decision because it is due to your rejection of Jesus as your Savior. Whenever you feel the call on your heart to give your life to Him, please don’t turn away from Him. Remember, He paid the price for your sins and mine but it is up to you to accept Him as your Savior.