Are any of us really OK?

There are so many things wrong with our world today. The stock market is up and down, the debts which our country owes are coming down but not fast enough, the debt which many of us owe to credit companies is out of this world. Are we really doing OK? In many ways, we really aren’t doing very well at all! The debts that we owe on money we don’t really have are only the beginning of our trouble. Then there are the sin debts which many of us still carry around with us, even though they have been forgiven or at least paid for through the blood of Jesus. Whether you or I have accepted His gift of forgiveness or not is up to us and many people still refuse it.

We go through life as if we are guaranteed a certain number of years and even though the Bible does say that we are allotted three score and ten (70 years) or possibly four score (80 years, by our strength), these are not guaranteed! We come within two feet of dying every time we get on the highway, regardless of which city or state you live in! We pass each other going at least seventy-five miles per hour and we are usually as close as 24 inches when we do pass each other. That doesn’t even count for early morning and late day rush hours! At those times, we are usually so close to each other until we could hand a cup of coffee off to one person and it wouldn’t hit the ground for two miles or more. We are truly blessed just to get home without any scrapes or paint missing from our cars or trucks!

Most of the time we don’t even think about these close calls we have that we somehow survived. We just look at it as if it were ordained that we would get home each and every time we go out on the road. The only real guarantees in this world are death and taxes. So why do we live as if nothing can ever or will ever go wrong? We do it when we are young, in our teens and twenties, and we continue to do it until we finally wise up and look around and some of your friends are dying before you. Some of them because of cancer or a heart attack, some of them because of a car wreck or even being robbed or shot while being robbed for something that someone else wants that you have. Are we OK?

It is a good question which really doesn’t have a great answer. Some of us are cruising along and doing pretty well, some of us are dealing with pains and other ailments and some of us are just waiting to die. Then there are some who just don’t care one way or the other, as long as they are doing pretty well they don’t really care what is happening to the rest of the world. There are even a few who can’t forget wrongs which were done, intentionally or not, many years ago. So, how do we get to a point of seeking the One Who can bring us out of this place where we find ourselves?

First, by listening to your conscience and the leading that you get from the Holy Spirit, whether we call it that or not. When you feel led to seek out God and truly find the answer to the problems which plagues mankind, then you will find His Peace through Jesus the Christ, your Savior. There are many times when we feel Him leading us toward a better idea or to search for Something or Someone that we don’t know or don’t have a relationship with but until we find that One, there is an empty place which can’t be filled with anything that we try on our own. That is the place where Jesus belongs and that is why anything other than Him just doesn’t satisfy and it doesn’t feel right until we surrender to His calling and ask Him to come in and fill that space.

Being just “OK” is not what we were made for and God never intended for us to be satisfied with that. God calls to your heart through the Holy Spirit and it is up to you to answer His call for your life. It is your decision to give your heart to Jesus and allow Him to change your life into the life which you were meant to live! If you feel that pull, that call on your life and you ignore it and keep ignoring it then one day you may never feel that pull on your life again. You will wonder what happened for a little while but you will continue on with your life as if nothing happened and in fact, that is what happened. Nothing. Don’t live your life for nothing, live it for Jesus and tell others what He has done and is doing in your life because nothing is scary when it is all that there is for eternity.

How many times…

How many times will you push the Spirit away? How many times will you hear a sermon but ignore its message? What will happen to you when that day comes when Jesus calls His church home? Do you know? Do you even believe that it is going to happen?

There are many people in the world who really don’t believe that Jesus is coming back, but according to God’s Word He is. There are many things which are happening in the world today which were foretold by Jesus and by some Old Testament prophets and they all point to His Second coming. Life will go on as normal, just as it has for two thousand years, until that day when “the dead in Christ will rise“. Then the whole world will know that the Bible is God’s Truth but at that point it may be too late for some people.

Why do I say it may be too late for some? Because, they may be in an airplane which had a Christian pilot or a train or a bus. When they are taken up to be with Jesus, who will be driving or flying the plane then? That day will be total chaos because of the cars and other types of transportation which will be left without a driver or even passengers. The thing is, we don’t know when this is going to take place. It could be tomorrow or today or possibly tonight.

What will you do with your life? How have you prepared for eternity? Are you ready? These are questions which need an answer because when that day and hour comes, the Bible says that it will happen in the blink of an eye. You could be talking to a friend and look up and all that is left is their clothes, their shoes, their watch or their cell phone. Then what? It won’t be long before the Peace treaty with Israel will be signed for seven years and then the time of Tribulation will begin.

I pray that everyone who reads this will seek out Jesus as their Savior before that day arrives because it will be hard to be a Christian during that time.

Kingdom come…

What do you think this means? It is the Kingdom of our Lord which is coming soon to this Earth. Are you ready to live there and help Him govern the world?

What do you mean, help Him? The Bible says that we will be helping Him to govern the whole world during the one thousand years that He will govern the whole Earth and all of the countries which survive the Tribulation times. Have you ever thought about being useful to Jesus in this way? I never did but it seems that we will be doing exactly that. We will be in our glorified bodies too, so no harm can come to us during this time as well!

Why do I sound like I’m looking forward to this? Because, there will be peace all over the world for one thousand years, and we will get to see how much mankind can actually do when we aren’t trying to kill each other! It will be a glorious time to be alive.

I pray that all who read this will seek Jesus as their Savior while there is still time and safety to do so, because when the church is taken away this world is going to be much worse than it is today. Especially against those who choose to believe in Jesus during this time. Please, don’t wait! Give your heart to Him today!

Spinning round and round…

Do you ever feel like you are doing the same thing that your tires are doing? Going around and around and maybe getting somewhere but you feel as if you are in a rut? There are many days that I feel this way and I’m disabled. I don’t go to work every morning and come home at night exhausted and worn out to the point of collapse. Some days, just getting up and working around in the house is enough to do that.

No, I’m not getting into a pity party here it is just a fact for most people who do work one or two jobs. When they do get some time off, they feel like just watching TV and doing as little as possible. I understand that and God does too. Keeping your mind focused on Jesus and following Him every day is hard sometimes, but it is worth it. Because it can lower your blood pressure and impact your health, physically and spiritually, in many ways.

Of course, keeping your eyes focused on Him is how we are supposed to walk through this world and do His will every day. It isn’t a question of should we do this, if you are a born-again Christian it is your duty and responsibility to do so. Just as a soldier in military service does his or her duty, we are in the Army of the Lord and we are supposed to do our duty for His Kingdom until it is time for us to go home to be with Him.

This is not a question of wanting to or not wanting to work for Him. We are commanded to work for the Kingdom and let others see that His Presence in our lives makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us because He is present in our hearts and every decision that we make. God loves each of us which is why He sent Jesus into the world to pay the penalty for our sins. So that by believing in Him and putting our faith in Him for our salvation, we will be saved.

It wasn’t a light thing which Jesus the Son did for us because His human body and mind knew the suffering which He would have to endure before His crucifixion and during the time on the cross. This is why He sweat drops of blood on the night before when He was taken to the priests and “tried” for blasphemy. He committed no crime because He was God and man, but they didn’t want to see or to make sure of His claim of being their Messiah.

I pray that all of us who claim Jesus as our Savior will take Him with us each and every day will do so and live our lives the way that He wants us to do and to live in this world.

We do tend to forget…

Judges 2:7-15; Judges 21:25

What happened when the Israelites came into the Promised land? In about forty years they were supposed to conquer all of the inhabitants of the land which God had promised to Abraham. They did conquer most of them, but not all. That is why they are having so much trouble today. Their ancestors didn’t obey God fully. One tribe pushed back this group and another tribe pushed back this group but they didn’t destroy them like God had told them to do.

You can see the evidence of the effect of the “world’s values” on all of the so-called “reality” shows which mock anything that is Christian in origin. You can see it and hear it on the news. They censor God’s Truth and any representation of Him to the point of blocking some images or placing more emphasis on stories that go against Christian values. People today are inventing their own gods. Sometimes they are the god that they worship or turn to in their time of need, but most often when they realize that there is nothing that the doctor or their god can do, they will cry out to God.

Yet some are depending upon their money or their fame or even family and their possessions as if those can get you into eternity. Nothing which is temporary on this Earth will be available to do anything for you after this life. In today’s society, it seems that everyone seems to be counting on themselves or the government or in some other form of “feel-good” theology or idea, whether it is another “version” of the gospel which is not the actual gospel or just their “ideas”.

God’s way to Heaven is the only one which works and it is through faith and belief in Jesus and the atonement which He purchased for us by His blood and His death and resurrection after being crucified. There is nothing which our wisdom or our ideas can bring to the cross in order to help Jesus to save us because He has already done everything that was necessary because He was the only One Who could do the job!

The problems in our world today are the same ones which have been happening to the Jewish people ever since Joshua and the generation which came out of the wilderness died. In the last chapter of Judges in verse 25, you can tell that they really had no leadership because it says: 25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. The generation which has grown up in the past forty or fifty years has moved away from the Christian principles which kept their parents going. The generation after that has moved even farther away from the church and the values which are taught there. In another generation, there will be very few, if any, who go to church regularly and read their Bible.

I read a statistic a few days ago conducted by Lifeway and it said that of those who do attend church regularly, at least once a week, only about 32 percent study their Bibles outside of the service. Of the ones who do, it falls in the age group from 55 years old and up.

I pray that there will be a revival one day soon that will, hopefully, stop the church from dying but the falling away is prophesied to happen soon and it will whether we want it to or not. Make sure of your eternal home soon because one day you may not get another chance to make that decision.

When preachers preach from God’s Word, nothing that we say is made up. The ideas and the wisdom which God’s Spirit gives to us comes directly from Him if we are listening as we should. As it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

When a teacher, whether it is a Sunday school teacher, school teacher or parent, uses the wisdom and the faith which they have learned and received from God, they are counted among those “men (or women) of God” mentioned in 2 Timothy. Our world needs more teachers who listen to God’s wisdom and use it in teaching their students because if they don’t learn about God and Jesus from you or their parents, the world and the educational system of the world will not teach them about Him at all.

Jesus was human too

He gave up some of His deity and clothed Himself in humanity for the time that He spent here, but He never sinned. Did He make mistakes like we do? Possibly a few, but they weren’t recorded. When He worked in His father’s shop as a carpenter I imagine He banged His fingers a few times or got some splinters in His fingers. The Bible says that He didn’t sin, it says nothing about any mistakes like those I described. That is the most incredible thing about our Lord and Savior, He lived as a human being with our limitations but He was still God. He was still in control of the demons and diseases and the storms and even life and death!

But…He was human in some ways, the most human ways.

He was tempted. He felt hunger and pain and sorrow and fear. He likely felt many of the feelings which we feel every day of our lives, but He didn’t sin and He didn’t allow Himself to be drawn toward sin. Could we do that? Humanly speaking, not a chance. With the Holy Spirit and determination to live according to His teachings and following His example…we might come close. But in our world today it would be very hard to do or very nearly impossible unless you lived in a very secluded place.

In fact, I don’t believe that we could live even one whole day without a sinful thought or action, even with the Holy Spirit living within us as Christians. Why? Because we are just not attuned to His leading and His voice well enough to hear and obey everything that He says. Jesus could and He did live that way because He listened to His Father and the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus go through all of this?

For you!

This was planned from the beginning, even before the Earth was formed or Eden became a garden! God knew that we would need a Savior and Jesus was tasked with this long before you or I came into this world. He lived and worked as a carpenter so He wasn’t some frail, sickly Jesus. The only reason He had trouble carrying the cross was because of the beating that He took before the crucifixion. He had already lost a couple of pints of blood (likely) before they placed the cross on His shoulders. Yes, Jesus went through all of this for your sins and mine just so we could become joint heirs with Him in God’s Kingdom.

Once you give your heart to Jesus and repent of your sinful life, your salvation can never be lost or taken from you.

Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?

This question has been asked by all sorts of people. From Pharaoh on down through the ages until now. Why is it so hard for people to grasp that the Lord is our Creator and our God? He places kings and Presidents in their offices. He keeps governments in place to do His will, even though they may not be Christian in their beliefs. Pharaoh didn’t believe in God and didn’t want to believe in Him until God showed that He was above all of the gods of Egypt and Pharaoh too.

So, why do we either decide that we don’t want to believe in God or His Word or we are so arrogant that we think we are better than He is? Satan thought this and still thinks it, but he is a defeated foe. We, as human beings, are much less powerful than an archangel so how can we think that we might have some sway over God’s decisions? We can’t! God created the entire universe with His Word and formed mankind from the dirt on the Earth…can you do that?

God did all of these things for His glory and to make us see that He is God! Not a carving or a casting of any person or imagination or of an animal or your family or your career! None of those can speak to you in the way that He does and not one of them died and rose from the grave to pay for your sins and mine! Only Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, did that and HE did it because He loved us long before we were born!

God the Father knew each of us before the foundation of the world was laid by Him. Yet, many of us act as if He doesn’t exist or rather we don’t want Him to be real. Why? Because, if God is real then His Word is true and everything that we thought we knew about evolution and science, while they may not be wrong some of it will have to be re-thought a bit. Because many have said that there was no world-wide flood and the Earth has to be more than a few thousand years old. Evolution didn’t happen because God created everything, if His Word is true. Which it is! God doesn’t lie.

Your life is dependent upon many things which God has put into place in our natural world. Many of them govern the way the air and the gases which make up our atmosphere react with one another. Some of these numbers are so precise until a variation between 0.007 up or down by only one thousandth would cause the universe itself to come apart and life would cease to exist. So, don’t say that God has no interest in our lives. Even the molecule of the protein which holds our bodies together, called Laminine, is shaped like a Cross.

**Think about this when you feel like denying that God exists.**

Who is God?

The names and attributes of God the Father are numerous and are described in detail in His Word. So…who is God? First of all, He is the Creator of everything. He is God and there is no other. Creation was thought of by God long before the Light shone through the darkness of the cosmos. Why did I call it cosmos when there was nothing there? Because it was a place where there was nothing yet it was as huge and as large as all of the universe is now or maybe more! God looked at it, even though there was no light in it at the time and He knew that there would be people of many nations and many languages and He loved them, even though they did not exist…yet! They were in His mind, we were in His mind before there was a planet or a moon or an Earth for us to live on. He loved us before the beginning of everything! Isn’t that wonderful?

I cannot go into all of the attributes of God and His awesomeness in this small article but one of those attributes was Jesus the Son. God existed as a triune being as God the Father, Jesus the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each of these is God but each of them does different things in creation and in our world. Jesus is the Living Word of God and He was part of the Creator because the Word of God brought all of creation into existence just by His Word. The only part of creation which was not brought about by His spoken Word was mankind. God formed mankind from the clay, the dust of the Earth and later He formed woman from the rib of the man. Formed suggests that God has a personal part in creating us. Isn’t that wonderful?

When you read God’s Word you are studying His speech, His thoughts, His feelings, even if men wrote them down. The Holy Spirit inspired those men and taught them those words and His thoughts and commands that He intended for them to write down for a purpose. To teach us how to live, how to love, how to deal with problems in life. God’s Word is the best textbook in the world because it did not come from the mind of man, but from God Himself! The wisdom contained in it surpasses all of mankind’s wisdom, not because it is better but because it is truthful and it is the absolute Truth.

God’s Word teaches us how to be more like Him. Are there some aspects of God that we can’t be like or live out in our life? Yes, because He is God. We can’t create life from nothing. We are His creation and we will never be “God”. Let no one tell you that you will be and if they do, run! Your life is not just this existence, which is about seventy years or maybe up to one hundred years. That is but a moment in time when you think about eternity. God’s Living Word, Jesus Christ, said that we will either accept Him as our Savior or we will reject Him. There are only two choices. One of them will bring you into God’s Presence in Heaven and rejecting Jesus will send you into hell because you chose to reject Him. It is your choice…so choose wisely because after your last breath comes the judgment and your choice determines your destination.

Remember, God so loved the world (every person in the world), that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him (for salvation) will have everlasting life. ¹⁷For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸Whoever believes and has decided to trust in Him [as personal Savior and Lord] is not judged[for this one, there is no judgment, no rejection, no condemnation]; but the one who does not believe [and has decided to reject Him as personal Savior and Lord] is judged already [that one has been convicted and sentenced], because ^[b]he has not believed and trusted in the name of the [One and] only begotten Son of God [the One who is truly unique, the only One of His kind, the One who alone can save him]. John 3:16-18 AMP.

One small step…

Our Creator placed the “lesser light to rule the night” in the sky many years ago and today there have been celebrations and re-broadcasts of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. Fifty years ago. I was seven years old at the time and I remember hearing those words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. I never thought about being alive fifty years later to re-live those moments. I do remember how much we all hoped that mankind would get better at being mankind and better at agreeing about things.

Our problem has persisted for much longer than fifty years though. Most of our so-called “racial” problems and religious problems won’t be solved until Jesus is ruling the world one day. We don’t have the fortitude and wisdom needed to get along. So, regardless of the songs that are written or the poems which are written about peace on Earth and the fictional stories about mankind putting war aside one day, it is not going to happen until Jesus comes back!

He is the only Person capable of bringing lasting peace to our world. No ruler or any man will be able to bring peace to the whole world. He is also very good at bringing peace into your life too, if you will give Him a chance. God loves each of us so much that He gave His only Son for our sins. Jesus took all of the punishment and the separation from God the Father just so we could be forgiven. Isn’t that amazing enough to warrant giving Him your life so you can tell others about Him too?

Please seek Jesus out while you have a chance in this life because there isn’t a second chance after this one is done.

When you pray…

Do you just sit there and ask God for stuff or is it an actual, heartfelt prayer? Is your prayer mostly for yourself or for others? Praying for others deals with selfishness because its not really about you, because nothing in this life is. Your Christian life should be about caring for others, whether it is family or not.

Jesus did not say at any time “if you pray…”, He said “when you pray…“. Prayer is a part of your life as a Christian. It is your lifeline to God and your emergency contact point with Him. Prayer can accomplish more in your life and in the lives of those you pray for than any number of doctors or lawyers or anyone else. Just as you enjoy being able to contact your parents or your children, God is our Heavenly Father, our Creator and He enjoys it when His children contact Him for our needs as well as the needs of others.

Prayer is your Spirit crying out to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, Who can do all things in your life in His will for your life. He doesn’t fulfill your list of things that you want like a grandfather or like Santa. God takes care of our needs when we are living and working in His will for our lives. Asking for a Corvette or a million dollars is not the way to pray! Prayer for yourself should be according to the will of God to strengthen and enable you to work more effectively for His Kingdom and His glory. Would a million dollars do that? Maybe but not likely. Would a Corvette? No.

Prayer is necessary for our life and for our work which God has called us to do, even if you only have one day left to live. If you have more days ahead that is wonderful because you can do more for God each and every day! It doesn’t matter how much pain you are in or how much money you have or don’t have, God can use you in His Kingdom. God’s Word is the most useful and valuable possession that you can own. It is more valuable than a mountain of gold because the words contained within it came from the mind of our Creator and our Father. No amount of human wisdom can match the wisdom contained within its pages.

I truly pray that anyone reading this will search the Bible for the needs in their life because if they don’t have a relationship with Jesus…that is the greatest need that they will ever have. Why? Because without Him, eternity will be lonely, miserable and painful in hell. Why? Because it is a decision that you make when you know that you need Him and if you don’t accept Jesus as your Savior then that is where you will be.