Category: Be useful to God

Too much…


Do you believe that your life and your sins are too much for God to love or to forgive? No, there is no sin which God can’t or won’t forgive. The only sin which God won’t forgive us for is our sin of neglecting our salvation by refusing to accept Jesus as our salvation. It is OUR decision to refuse this gift of God and by refusing to accept His gift of salvation we are condemned already. It is not God or even Jesus who condemns you to hell but it is your own action and your own decision to refuse God’s gift to each of us through the sacrifice of Jesus to take the punishment for your sins. He paid the price so you would not have to, but by refusing to accept and believe this you condemn yourself to hell.

There are more sins and heinous actions which have been done in all of the time which mankind has been on Earth and yet Jesus’ sacrifice covered them all, if the people would accept Him as their Savior.

Truthfully, there is no pathway to Heaven except through belief in the work and the person of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. Repent therefore and turn away from your sins, even if they are many, and you shall be saved. In Jesus’ name I pray for all who read this. Amen

In this life…


As we trudge through this pain-filled life we can see all sorts of contrasts on TV and in the news and sometimes in books too. Here is a quote from a book that I bought and have been reading and it sums up the ending of our lives or the beginning because it is all a matter of perspective.

“There were two friends who had lived long lives. One was a rich man, by the world’s standards, and the other didn’t have much. The rich man was not a Christian but the other man was a strong believer in Jesus. The rich man told one of his visitors one day: I will soon have to leave all of my riches but when he dies, he will gain his.” (quoted from “Where I am” by Billy Graham)

I did paraphrase it a bit but the meaning is clear. The rich man knew that his reward had been granted to him while he was living but the poor man had stored his riches and wealth in Jesus. So the one that the world considered poor was actually rich into eternity. Why do we live like this? Because we want things in this life and many of us don’t look much further than our bank account. But, if you find someone living on Social Security as their “pension”, you will find someone who usually depends on God for their existence. They know that the money will run out most of the time before the month.

Why are there more Christians in China and Africa than there are in America? Because the vast majority of people in those countries live on a fraction of what Americans have, that’s why! Those Christians depend upon their Savior not only because He has given them eternity but because they know that He will meet their needs every day. Some days they will have just enough to make it and maybe tomorrow they might have a little surplus but they will share that with their friends and family. If the church in every country could teach that principle to all believers what a wonderful world we would have.

Jesus told His disciples that “you will have trials in this world, but I have overcome the world“. God never told us in His Word that we would have it easy if we would give our lives to serving Him. Actually, He said just the opposite. Many who are looking for a better life would jump at the chance of an easy life if being a Christian meant that it would be granted to them but that has never been part of the “blessing” since Jesus returned to the Father. God does give us the strength to endure those trials through faith in Jesus but we must seek Him in our good times as well as when things aren’t going so good.

Living the life of a faithful Christian is like a toddler holding your hand while walking on a trail which has some rough areas to cross. The “toddler” Christian will hold “God’s” hand until the trail gets a bit easier to handle then want to run ahead but that is where we need to hold His hand to keep us on the right path even more. Because sometimes when we find a smooth path we also find other “paths” which are even better and easier to navigate and it is tempting to follow those easier paths rather than staying on the pathway that we were following God on. That’s when we get into trouble and have to be led through some bushes and thorns to get back where we should’ve stayed.

There are consequences…


Have you ever thought of what will happen if you decide to walk out on God? To go your own way or do things your way instead of God’s way is the worst decision that you can make. If you are a Christian and you have given your heart to Him you should work for God’s Kingdom even in your own vocation, no matter what it may be. God can work through you in so many ways and it doesn’t matter what your job is, He can use your life and witness to let someone know about Jesus.

Sampson didn’t live his life fully in God’s will until he was captured by the Philistines and blinded. While he was being humiliated, his hair began to grow back. When they wanted to make fun of God and Sampson in their celebration, he prayed and asked God to fill him with the strength to avenge Israel in his death and God did that.

Jonah did not want to take God’s message of forgiveness to Nineveh. He didn’t like them. He wanted the fire of God to fall on that city. You know the story but when he did go and preach to them they repented in sackcloth and ashes and God did not bring any fire or punishment on them. Then, Jonah went outside the city and pouted. He had run from the calling of God and he didn’t want his mission to work. He wanted God to destroy them. But…what a revival!

Sometimes the consequences of your walking away from God can be really bad, for you. Because if you have walked away from His calling on your life, leaving behind the option of salvation and doing what you want, the consequences may not be bad in this life. God may allow you to have the world’s riches but as Jesus said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? “. What does that mean? It means that you have enjoyed the riches of this life but you will be in hell in the next life. Please don’t turn away from His call on your life and ask Him to come into your heart and change you into His child.

Honor God daily


Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:2)

Luke 11: 2-4 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.

In Jesus’ model prayer in Luke, we are told to honor our Father in heaven, but do we? Are we really honoring God as Jesus tells us to do or are we just saying words which we have memorized? In Ecclesiastes, Solomon tells us that we should be careful of saying anything from our own mind when we come before God. Why is this? Because God is our Creator and our Provider and it is from His hand of grace and mercy that we live and breathe. While it is true that people haven’t dropped dead because of their words or their lack of respect for God, at least since the time of the apostles. We should honor God and Jesus with our words and our lives.

Think about Who it is that we are speaking of in this instance. We are talking about GOD and His Son, Jesus! The Creator of All that is or ever has been in the entire universe. We aren’t talking about Joe or Bob that we went to school with. Sometimes we give more respect and honor to our grandparents or military veterans than we give to God and that is wrong.

Do you realize that God gives you the air that you breathe and He keeps all of the physical processes going which allows you to think and eat and walk each and every day of your life? With a thought, He could end your life as it is. He could extinguish the Sun if He wished and we would truly see what an ice age would be like because the oceans would freeze solid. Our lives are only ours because God wants us to be here doing the things which we are doing! It isn’t because we are great and wonderful people or some magnificent accomplishments that we have done! He is the reason that we have the ability and the knowledge to be able to do what we do!

God loves us so much that Jesus had to come to Earth and die a horrible death in order to pay for our sins…all of our sins! He did this because He loves each one of us, not because He had to. Jesus could not even pray that “model prayer” because He didn’t have any sins to be forgiven of. It shows us how to pray because we are supposed to give praise to God first and honor Him before we ever say anything about our needs or our sins. Praying that prayer as a “prayer” is like repeating a formula or a recipe. It has all of the elements but it lacks the specifics for us.

I don’t mean that the model prayer is anything less than perfect, but if you pray it exactly the way that Jesus said to, then it is not specific to your needs. He said this is how you should pray, not what you should pray. It is the model of your prayers and mine. Give God His glory and His honor in the beginning of the prayer, repent of your sins and ask for His forgiveness and then seek His wisdom for what you are in need of, then thank God for His mercy and grace that you can bring your prayer to His throne. God already knows what we need, but like an Earthly father, He wants to hear His children come to Him and ask for their needs in humility and faith.

Do you share?


Jesus came to bring His message to His people. He chose men who weren’t preachers or priests but He did choose men who had the ability to tell other people in a way that they will hear and understand His message. The command which was given to the apostles before Jesus was taken up into Heaven was to go and tell everyone who would listen about this risen Savior that loves them and would like to see them accept Him as their Savior too.

Here’s a small graphic which illustrates what this kind of growth would look like if every person went out and told at least one other person and then that person told one more, then they went out and told two each until the whole world would hear.

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I know it isn’t very persuasive in its meaning, but if each of us would tell someone about what Jesus did for us and for them, God can cause that seed of faith to grow. Then when they tell someone it will bloom into two more people. Do you see where this is going? It only takes one believer to truly believe and then tell someone else about Jesus Christ and then do it again, and they will tell someone and they will tell someone, etc. Will everyone you tell go and tell someone else? Not likely, but if they only tell one person and then that person changes their life and maybe tells someone else, even if it is just one person, the message is spreading.

Why is this important? Because that is our job as believers, as Christians! We are supposed to tell others what Jesus did for us and for them…but don’t stop with just one other person. Tell anyone who will listen because it is urgent! We don’t know when Jesus will call His church home. It could be tonight or in the morning but we should be telling people right up until the time when the trumpet sounds. Maybe we will be telling someone about our Savior when we are called home. If they didn’t want to believe before we said anything, when we vanish before their very eyes they will believe! It may be a little late for them to come to Jesus but they will likely come to know Him better from that day on.

Don’t waste your time looking around on Facebook! Tell someone that you know about Jesus and about what He has done for you, because God wants as many of His children in Heaven as He can get. Amen

Cultivation for Life


In many ways, our lives are kinda like farming. We cultivate relationships and friendships and sometimes those turn into life-long, close relationships. It takes patience and effort though and occasionally we don’t take care of these very well. Many times in our lives, a lot of time will go by before we see each other or even speak to each other. It causes hurt feelings and bruised pride and can really damage a friendship…sometimes.

We really should try to put the effort into our relationships, whether they are friends or our spouse or even our family. But, sometimes we neglect to honor those with our time and our effort and when we do that, things change. Weeds will grow in our “garden of friends”. Sometimes we will see them and get rid of them before they cause problems. Sometimes they are aggressive and they have roots that go deep into our past and it is possible that we have forgotten what caused them in the first place.

Why do I speak about friendships and relationships like a garden? Because we should work on them like we would a garden. Make sure that the “soil” of our life is ready for a newly planted “friend” and then take care of them in whatever way is needed. Don’t neglect them because when you neglect a garden or a friendship, problems begin to appear. Weeds in a garden and hurt feelings in a relationship, whether it is between friends or in a closer relationship, they will grow and cause more problems.

That is the wonderful thing about your relationship with God and His Son, Jesus. They already know what is going on in your life. They aren’t surprised or hurt by what you say or don’t say. They can see the “problems” before they come up but they want us to recognize them and seek their help with those problems. Because they are better at fixing problems than we are. They know the cause and the fix before you or me. But just because they aren’t surprised by our problems doesn’t mean that they will try to force us to listen to their advice. We have to seek them out and ask for their help with our problems.

Sometimes it takes a problem coming into our lives to force us to seek God’s answer and His wisdom for this situation. We don’t like it when these problems show up and they usually are very inconvenient because of their timing but if we will seek God’s wisdom to get us through them one at a time, we will learn from them and be able to move forward. God always has better advice for us in His Word than we could ever find in a library or even from a friend if we will listen to the advice and take it to heart. 

Your life and mine are populated with many friends. Some we know only at work and some we’ve known since grammar school. Some are just acquaintances and some are very close friends. Sometimes the friendship might have become stale because of time or distance and that can happen to family relationships too. Make sure that your relationship with Jesus is not stale. Keep in touch with Him at all times and in all things, good or bad, because He will never leave you or forsake you regardless of the circumstances.

How foolish are we?


O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You.
Psalm 69:5 Do you realize that all of the wisdom that we have is completely foolish in God’s sight? All of the learning and the degrees in the world are simply “man’s wisdom” and learning which we may believe is the best, but without God’s wisdom and His guidance, it means nothing. God’s Word is the best book to read in times of heartache and trouble and it is the best book to read for your healing when you are sick. There is so much wise advice in God’s Word until the best education that you could have would be to read it every day!

Our ideas and wisdom can carry us only so far but His Wisdom and advice can carry us all the way to eternity! Doesn’t that sound wonderful? God loves each of us and has loved each of us from before the Earth and everything else was created. Not just because we were a thought in His mind but because He lives outside of time. He can see the beginning and the ending of the universe and He knows when you were born and when you will die. He also knows everything that you can and will do in your life, and that applies to everyone! Not just Christians living now but those who will become Christians before the end of the world!

Remember in the Psalm where David wrote “I am fearfully and wonderfully made“? He was speaking of God’s involvement in stitching each of us together before we are born. But, even before God’s hand does this He could look down through time itself and see each of us and know what manner of person we would be and how useful we would be in His Kingdom. We serve God, our Creator and Redeemer, Who lives and has lived forever. We do not serve a man with his wisdom and his “sayings”! God’s Spirit moved the prophets and scribes of ages past and He still moves those who will listen to Him to write His words and remind people about His Love for them.

God has never failed to keep His promises to us and He won’t fail to do so in the years to come. I ask that anyone who reads this please seek out Jesus and His salvation for your life because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Make sure of your eternity and your salvation today while you can.

How unique are you?


Consider that God knitted your DNA together in the womb, there is not another person on Earth like you. Even if they are your twin, there is something unique about each of you that the other does not have. Why does God make each of us in this way? Because, it gives each of us those special and unique talents and abilities which makes each of us so useful to Him. In ways that we may not realize until He shows us what they are.

God loves each of us, whether we have given our hearts to Jesus or not. He has loved us this deeply since before creation. So make sure that you seek Him in all that you do when you feel His call on your life. Living in this world today we can see the evil around us all of the time. On the news, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines. When I say evil I mean anything which does not acknowledge God as King and Jesus as Savior. If you listen to the words of those who want a socialist state you can tell that they do not revere God in any way except for thinking that they are “god”.

You are unique because God made you that way. Mom and Dad contributed some genetic material to your creation but God is the designer and He put the traits which He wanted you to have inside you. We are made in and carry God’s image in us. We are not gods but we are children of His, if we have given our hearts to Jesus and have been adopted into His family. If you don’t have Jesus as your Savior then you are no better than any other lost person in this world. But…if God has a special job for you to do He will make a way for you to come to Him as a saved and sanctified child adopted into His family. There is no power on Earth that can stop Him if He has determined that you are His!

God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice which paid for all of your sins and mine so that you can be adopted as sons into His family.

Wisdom comes from God


It seems that many people place their “faith” in books and degrees and they seem to think that the wisdom that they have came from those achievements. Some of it did, at least the mankind of wisdom comes from books and degrees. But what about your common sense? What about the value and wisdom which comes from reading God’s Word?

I’ve heard that there are some who seem to be lacking in the “common sense” department but have you ever thought that their version of common sense may just be different from yours? It may not be the same or work in the same fashion as yours does but it is likely that they have a special case of common sense which fits their position and purpose in this life. Why do I say this? Because God is the One Who gives out “common sense” and I don’t think He makes mistakes.

There are too many physical properties of our universe which have to be so in tune for life to exist to say that God could make a mistake like not giving someone any common sense. He doesn’t make mistakes. But, we seem to want Him to be more like us instead of the other way around. I don’t want God to be like us at all! If He were like us, I’m sure we would not be here!

All of the wisdom in the world was given to us from God. I don’t think that He quit speaking through people just because it isn’t canonized and included in the Bible. What about all of the Christian literature which has His wisdom included in it? True, some of the inclusions are direct quotes from the Bible but there is other wisdom in those books which did not come from the Bible and it is just as wise and true as if Paul wrote it. Do we look down on it because it is “man’s” wisdom rather than from God? How do you know that the Holy Spirit didn’t inspire them to write it? He could be giving me these words too and frankly, I think He always has because I’ve never been a person who talks a lot.

Writing here is my witness to others who may never get to a Christian church and I stand by that conviction. I do believe that the Holy Spirit gives me the words to say here, so please take the time to read His wisdom in these words because I’m not trying to convince you of anything other than the fact that Jesus is the Christ and He is the only Savior Who can save you from your sins and pardon you so you can enter into eternity with Him.

Does Jesus know you?


In the South this is a question which might insult some people. It may insult many people. Why? Because, the South has always been known as “the Bible belt”. Nearly everyone goes to church at least once during the month. Most people have heard a sermon about Him and His offer of salvation but does He know you?

It is an intriguing question and one that makes you think about your eternity and if you are saved. Can you answer this question and feel confident about your answer? You can if you have never given your heart to Him because you can tell people that you don’t know Him, so it is a surety that He doesn’t know you as a child of God. I don’t mean that He doesn’t know you because He is the Creator! He knitted each of our DNA strands together and He knows who you are and your abilities because He gave them to you!

Jesus the Christ is the Second of the Godhead. He is the Living Word of God the Father and then there is the Holy Spirit which does the will of them all in the universe. Jesus was God Who came to live with us and be tempted just as we are so that He could understand our problems and our humanity. He put on humanity in order to pay the price for ALL of our sinful thoughts and words and deeds and He did exactly that on the cross!

The legion of demons that possessed the man in the tombs pleaded with Him that He would not send them into outer darkness. They knew Who He was. Jesus is our Savior but we act as if He doesn’t exist and those who do not believe in Him for their salvation are lost in their spiritual life already. Denying Jesus is the only real sin which sends you to hell. Your decision to deny Him or to push His offer of salvation away and tell Him that you don’t want His free gift is the decision which will send you to hell.

God loves you and He sent His Son to bring salvation to those who seek it. He has known those who would seek Him since before the foundation of the whole world. He could see you in the future and He knew what you are doing and what you can do for His Kingdom. He has given you your abilities and your intelligence and your experiences which shape you into the person that God needs to use as a disciple or apostle or just as a witness to those who haven’t heard about Him yet. Don’t turn this chance down. You may not get another chance to give your life to Jesus.

Only by giving your life and your heart to Jesus can you claim any of these promises. Please consider your eternity with Him and ask Him into your heart, repenting of your sins so that you can claim these promises and more in Christ.