Category: Be useful to God

Are we being disciplined?


Look into the Old Testament and you see God actively disciplining His people. He used signs and wonders to bring them out of Egypt and then He also used all kinds of signs and punishments to bring the Israelite community back into fellowship with Him. I am very glad that He does NOT use those kinds of enticements or punishments for the church, that is supposed to be part of the New Covenant through the blood of Jesus. Why is our world in such turmoil today? Mostly because the church dropped the ball in the past.

It didn’t take the “church” long to conform to the people and the world around them after Jesus ascended to Heaven. The Roman Catholic church adopted the “rituals” of pagans in order to bring them into its influence. That is where “Christmas” and “Easter” come from.

Have you thought about how we could get people to come to church? Most of us don’t because the world around us, for the most part, is not interested in coming to church. They don’t want to hear what they are doing wrong nor do they want to know that their “truth” is not the right Truth. Most people in the world don’t believe that the Bible and its teachings are the Truth much less that what is written there was inspired by God’s Spirit. They just think that the Bible is an old book written thousands of years ago and it has no relevance in today’s society.

I do believe that we are being disciplined by God but it is a soft discipline at this point. He’s not throwing hail stones of one hundred pounds at us and the Earth is not breaking open and swallowing whole congregations but we are being taught a lesson if we will notice it and learn from it. The things which are happening around us with COVID-19 and the Antifa riots and other media hyped “news” are just the birth pains before the real storm hits during the Tribulation.

If you are not sure of your salvation or if you have shunned church services for whatever reason I encourage you to make sure as soon as possible. The 7 year peace treaty with Israel will be the beginning of hell on Earth. Make sure which side you are on before that time gets here if you can.

The wages of a sinful life


In Romans 6:23, Paul writes that “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”.

Why would God give us such a gift? It is worth more than we could ever begin to pay because there is no way that we can earn our way into heaven! But God sent Jesus Christ to Bethlehem as a human baby born to Mary the wife of Joseph. He came into the world as the son of David through His Earthly father and mother but He had the nature of God the Father. He came with no sin and He never faltered throughout His life. Just so He could go through the punishment of a criminal and be scourged and then hung up on a cross to die for humanity’s sins.

God the Father sent Jesus the Son to bear humanity’s shame and punishment, paying for our sins before most of us had even been born. I don’t know what the population of the world was at the time but He had looked down through history and He could see many people who needed salvation which could only come by His sacrifice. Clearly, God loved and still loves each of us far more completely and more deeply than we could ever imagine.

Your salvation and mine only comes by our belief in Jesus and our taking that belief into our hearts. Repenting of those sins which all of us have and seeking His Kingdom and His teachings so that we could be His until our death and then into eternity. It is our choice to do this but God already knows who will make that choice and who will not. God strung together your DNA in order to send you and many others like you and me into the world to be doctors or teachers or farmers or nurses but in doing so, He also knew which person would be a good fit for being a Christian. Your personality, your strength and your witness were all known before you were born. Just as God told Jeremiah, “….in the womb you were consecrated to Me”.

God loves each of us so much that He sent His own Son to die for our sins, paying the penalty for them and making atonement for us so that we could be allowed in His Presence one day. Isn’t that AWESOME! It is also humbling because the Creator of the universe cares about us on this little ball of dirt that He created for us. Life on this planet didn’t evolve from a single cell into multiple cells and then one day become all of life on this world! It was created in the mind of God and brought into existence by Him and for His pleasure. Why? I have no idea, but God does. Give Jesus your heart and make sure that it is done as soon as possible because not one of us knows how long we have to live and that decision has to be made while we live.

There are always two


It sounds like I’m channeling Master Yoda but what I am speaking or writing about is that there really are two, sometimes more but always 2. In our world the Lord shows us that in every situation there are 2 sides. Dark and light, good and bad, black and white, morning and evening. So how do we navigate in the gray areas that our culture insists on? God doesn’t show any gray areas. You are either in the light or the dark with no gray area in between.

How do we fix this? Truthfully, we can’t. It is a choice that we must make and it is an individual choice, not a collective one. Each of us must choose the side that we feel is the one that God is calling us to. I know that many people don’t believe in God as their Savior, but life requires a choice regardless of your beliefs. Because there is evil in our world and there is overwhelming love and goodness too. You see it and hear about it on the news or on your computer every day. Many people wonder why God allows the evil and the hatred that we see around us? That is where our choices come into the picture.

There are always two choices and just like the cartoon where the little demon was on one shoulder and the angel was on the other, those really are our choices every day. We can listen to one or the other and make a choice and it is that choice which determines how our day or our week turns out. When you look at the world with your spiritual eyes you can easily see that there aren’t any “gray areas” at all. You are either saved through faith in Jesus or you are not. You either believe in Him for your salvation or you just believe that He exists because it says so in the Bible which does not save your soul.

Our eternity stands or falls on one of two choices. Believe in Jesus for your salvation or choose not to believe in Him and go to hell. These choices have to be made in this life today! Why? Because we are not guaranteed a certain number of years before we die. I could die before I finish this or I could live another twenty years or so. With the pains that I have in my hands and my neck now I really don’t want to add another twenty years to it. My point is that we don’t know when our last day is, so choose which way you are going to go now…today.

What will you do?


One day the church, all believers, will be taken out of this world. If you don’t believe in Jesus for your salvation or even in the Bible or God either…you will be left here to go through what the Bible calls the Tribulation. This time will last for seven years and the beginning of it will be a seven year treaty which will be signed by all of the nations which want to destroy Israel. After the church, all believers in Jesus for their salvation, is taken up there will be all sorts of “explanations” for this, none of them will come from the Bible. Many people in the world will actually celebrate the fact that “the church” is gone, or they will think it is.

God will still call some people during this time to give their hearts to Jesus and be His witnesses around the world but they will be persecuted severely. My advice to those who are left here is to find a church and go inside it and locate a Bible, especially if you don’t have one. There may be other literature that will also help you to understand what you read and what it means for your salvation. Take advantage of these resources because the Antichrist and those following him will be destroying any book or building which had a congregation of believers. They do not want you to find hope in Jesus!

The last book in the Bible is the book of Revelation. In it Jesus told John to write many prophecies down which would only come true after the church, the believers, have been taken away because they are the bride of Christ. It tells of the churches which will be around at the time or just before the rapture of the church, some of which we have today. One will be a church which thinks they are working for God and His Kingdom but they aren’t doing a very good job of it. One church has lost sight of their first love which is Jesus. One church was on fire for the Lord but they have lost that fire and become “lukewarm” in their teachings and their works for Him. In a sense they have watered down the message so that it no longer means what it should mean. We see evidence of that today.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek out your Savior now! Before the church is taken up because the threats of death during the Tribulation and the strong delusion which will come upon those who are still here, even if you have knowledge of the Bible, will cause you to take the mark of the beast. If you do that, your soul is lost and you will be thrown into hell one day…if you survive long enough. The time of the “church age” or the age of Grace is coming to an end, very likely in our lifetime. I pray that anyone who reads this blog will seek out Jesus as your Savior, give your heart to Him and even if it is after the church is taken away keep your faith in Him.

Don’t wander into the belief that the current “savior” is the one. Read and study the Bible if you can find one. Find a place that you can grow your own vegetables and try your best to stay off of the grid if possible. Why do I suggest this? Because without the mark, you won’t be able to buy or sell gas for your vehicle or food or electricity but your soul has a place in heaven! I pray that anyone who may be searching for a Savior will seek Jesus Christ in the Bible and give your heart to Him. God has never left us and He loves you more than you can imagine. Read His Word and seek Him out before the day comes when you will truly have to choose between life with Jesus or death by beheading because you don’t have the mark.

What is salvation?


Well…it depends upon what a person is being saved from? Salvation can be many things to many people. You can be saved from physical death by a seat belt in a car or an air bag or both. You could be saved from a life of being filthy rich by your circumstances or by God’s grace, whichever you prefer. Salvation, for a Christian, is being saved from the punishment of hell that we deserve but by God’s grace our faith in Jesus atones for all of our sins and allows us to come before Him with no blemish of sin on our person. You could receive salvation from drowning by someone throwing a lifeline with a float attached to it.

So you see, salvation can come to each of us in different forms and at different times but the one that most of us are seeking is our salvation from the punishment that we deserve for our sins. God is our Creator and our Savior which is why He came to live as a human for about thirty three years. He came so that He would know the temptations that we experience not to judge us for those but to call us into a life with Him. Sometimes the call that we hear from Him comes when we are young and sometimes we don’t hear it until we are a bit older.

There is one illustration that I would like to give here which points out the reality that our Savior gives to us and to no others in Creation.

“The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns” says Martin Luther. It is one thing to say, “Christ is a Saviour”; it is quite another thing to say, “He is my Saviour and my Lord.” The devil can say the first; the true Christian alone can say the second. Resource, July/August, 1990.

To claim our salvation we must come to a realization that we need Jesus in our heart to save us. God does that when His Spirit reaches down and touches your heart, breaks it and re-molds it into a heart that is ready for His gift. Sometimes this is painful but sometimes it is something that we have sought for a long time and in that instance it feels so good to get the burden of years of carrying the guilt and the shame with us all of the time.

Only a Christian can say “Christ is my Savior and my Lord”. If you can’t confidently say that is feel in your heart that it is true then you may want to seek the Lord for confirmation of your salvation. Do you believe it or are you just saying words? God came down as a helpless baby to live as we live so that He could identify with every emotion and temptation that we have. He saw and healed many diseases while He was teaching His disciples about the Kingdom of God and that He has healing for every disease if we will believe in Him for our healing.

Some people only say the words. Some people read the Bible but they don’t believe a word of it. Its just a book of stories and the history of the Jewish people. It is so old that it doesn’t apply to us today.

All of the statements in the short paragraph above are false with parts of truth in them as well. “Now, hold on preacher! The Bible is the Word of God, it can’t be a lie!” The Bible is the history of the Jewish people but some people read it like a book. Some just think it is too old to apply to us now, and there are many people who truly don’t believe a word in it came from God.

Why is that important? Because, God inspired the prophets and kings to write the words which make up the Torah, which is our Old Testament. The apostles wrote their accounts of Jesus’ ministry and Paul wrote most of the prison epistles from a Roman prison but even they were under the influence of the Holy Spirit. If the Word, the Bible, is inspired by God and His Spirit, then it is true and there is no other way to interpret it.

Finally, salvation comes to us by faith in the Holy Spirit which convicts us of our need of salvation. Then He points us in the direction of Jesus Christ Who is our Savior and Lord to believe in Him for our salvation to become real and genuine. After that we should read God’s Word to know what we should do with all of this joy and grace that we’ve been given!

Who do you think you are?


Many people think far more highly of themselves than they should. Some don’t consider the gifts that they have been given in this life and some are too prideful to even answer the question. As if answering it is demeaning.

Life in all of its wondrous glory and in such bounty on the Earth. From the smallest plankton in the ocean to the Blue whale and all of the land animals and birds and fish that God created with the Word from His mouth. Our scientists still haven’t found all of them yet. There are still some in deep caverns in the Earth or under the sea that mankind has never seen nor have they been cataloged. Many of them would begin a new branch on the “tree of Life” because they don’t fit any other life-form definition.

People tend to look at themselves as they are described by their job. A plumber or a doctor or a lawyer. God doesn’t see us as a vocation, defined by our job or vocation. He sees our heart, our soul and knows what we are able to do on our own. He also knows what our potential is as well. God created and wove our DNA together in the womb so He knows our abilities and our limitations as a human being. But, if you will indulge me for a moment, what about that point when we become more than what we were born with? “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Our hearts are different spiritually and our soul is brighter when God looks at us. When heaven sees us after we have accepted Jesus as our Savior we look a lot like Jesus. A little rough around the edges maybe and still a bit of dirt here and there but with time and prayer and washing in God’s Word, we will begin to look far more like Him than we did at first. The thing is that we don’t see ourselves as being clean, forgiven, set apart from the world, adopted into God’s family because we can still see our faults and our flaws.

Occasionally we will feel different. We may even have a dream that we are standing in God’s Presence but we will be on our face because we don’t feel that we are worthy of being there. At least, that’s how I feel when I come before Him with a prayer or a request. But, God doesn’t see your imperfections or your flaws. He sees your soul and your heart as being a part of Him and His Son. Yes there are a few things which need to be polished and buffed a bit, but after salvation your outward man is only an Earthly cover over the New Creation which came to life when the Holy Spirit came to dwell within you.

Once you have given your heart to Him and asked Him to come into your heart, you are a new Creation. Neither man nor angel but also not God. You are an adopted Son born because your Spirit changed you so that you have become His. Live as your destiny in Christ allows you to. Not serving your old master in sin but living every day as a Son of God!

Faith…do you have it?


Without faith it is impossible to please God. So…do you have any faith in Him? In Mark chapter 9 there was a father who had come to Jesus’ disciples first because his son had a demon who afflicted him. This boy had this going on for many years and the apostles could not cast it out. When his father saw Jesus he said something that you don’t hear or read in the Bible very much. The father told Jesus that his son had been this way since childhood and he said “If you can….”.

Mark 9:14-29  14 When they came back to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. 15 Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him. 16 And He asked them, “What are you discussing with them?” 17 And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; 18 and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it.” 19 And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!” 20 They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. 21 And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 “It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” 23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” 26 After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. 28 When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” 29 And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

The boy’s father didn’t know Jesus very well at this point but he did ask Jesus to heal his son and help him with his unbelief. God can do all things as long as we believe in Him and don’t doubt that He can. But, mustering up enough faith to see something done that you have trouble believing that it can be done is something else entirely. Yet, God can help you with your faith in ways that you don’t reallize at first. Our God and Savior is AWESOME so don’t consider for a moment that He can’t do something that you ask of Him because He can!

I pray that everyone who may be in the path of the storms in our country and all over the world will seek His strength and guidance in these troubled times.

Who is in charge?


In our society today even those who are supposed to be in charge have doubts about who is really in charge. Some aren’t sure of their ability. Some are blocked from doing what needs to be done by those who want to see them fail. Some people just want to find someone to blame for their problems and they don’t care what they do or say about someone to switch the blame to someone else. In our country and our world at large it seems that nobody acknowledges that God is really the One Who is in charge.

In Colossians chapter 1 Paul writes this:  16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 

Our Creator, Redeemer and Savior is God and also Jesus Christ in whom we live and have our life now and into eternity. If you have given your life to Jesus and follow Him then your Spirit lives in Him and through Him. God’s love for us and especially the Jewish people is a love which cannot be measured by any human measure. We cannot understand it. He is above us and yet when Jesus came to live among us, He personally lived as a man so that He would know our weakness and our frailties and would be able to identify with each of us in a personal way.

Some people foolishly think that we are able to “rise above the human condition” with no help from anyone. If you look at the history of every country in the world, you can see that it just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t matter what political system is involved, mankind will be the animal that we think he is. While it is true that humanity can be and do good things for a while, historically it won’t last very long.

We can be more like Jesus Christ if we live according to His Word and teachings. The Holy Spirit comes into your heart and changes your “condition” so that we are able to rise above but we must live in His Word. Reading it, studying it, praying about it and what we can do through Him to be more like Him. Without the Holy Spirit we can do nothing. Our “natural inclination” is to be selfish and seek pleasure for our own purposes and do whatever it takes to “get ahead” in life. But by reading and studying God’s Word, not man’s rules and ideas, we can move toward being better than we could be on our own IF the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in and through us.

Don’t be the animal that “evolution” says that we are. God did not design us by using an ape, we are made in God’s image! More people need to see Jesus in and through our actions and our lives so that they will want to know Him too. The future of humanity is written in God’s Word and we should be living through Jesus and He should be working through us to bring the whole world into the future that God has prepared for it.

Consider the heat…


In the South, we live in a very humid area of the country especially during the summer. High pressure “cells” come through our area of the country at least once or twice every month. They begin well at times but when we get behind the high pressure “cell” it pushes humidity and warm air from the Gulf of Mexico up into Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama and parts of Texas too. Many of us have heard the saying about the heat in the Southwest “but its a dry heat”. Going from our state to Arizona is a wake-up call for sure but 110 degrees is HOT whether it is dry or humid although humidity would make that temperature nearly unbearable.

Why am I speaking about heat and the heat of summer to be specific? Because…hell is HOT and it could be a “dry heat” but an eternity there is not what most people think of when they hear about hell. Dry or not, we don’t know what temperature hell is and the lake of fire brings up images of the inside of a volcano to me. So consider this…all unbelievers and Satan and his demons will be cast into the lake of fire. Most people think that it doesn’t sound bad but people in hell will have eternal bodies. The kind of body which doesn’t die regardless of your circumstances but it will be able to experience pain

Being cast into a volcano in our body that we have here on Earth will be painful for only a few seconds. An eternal body that is cast into the lake of fire will live in the fire and pain forever. An immortal body will heal if it is hurt, whether from a gunshot or from thousands of degrees of lava. This place was not created by God for humanity. It was created for Satan and his demons but when we rebel and decide to live our life without God or Jesus as our example for living we are siding with Satan whether we worship him or not. Even if you go to church and “act” like a Christian for most of your life, thinking that you will get into Heaven because of your “righteousness” you are wrong!

The heat that we feel in the Southeast is nothing compared to hell and the fact that we will go to hell because we have rejected the offer of eternity by rejecting Jesus as our Savior just makes the lie that we believed even worse. Living our short lives here in the humidity and heat of summer is child’s play compared to the eternity that you will live in hell because you rejected Jesus as your Savior.

Remember the man who asked Jesus to “remember me when you come into your Kingdom”? Jesus told him that he would be in Paradise that day for the simple act of believing in Jesus and Who He was. He is at the right hand of the Father now waiting for God to tell Him to bring the church up there.

Something is in the closet…


When I was a child, I didn’t have anyone to call for my fears at night. I have never thought about it much before today. I heard a song a little while ago about a child that was scared and didn’t want his Dad to leave.

The thing that we should realize is that when you have Jesus Christ as your Savior, He is always with you no matter where you are. Of course when you are young the dark can be scary. The closet looks scary with the lights off. The air conditioner can make things move and cause shadows to move and your imagination can go into overdrive and make these normal things seem to be much worse than they are.

As Christians, the “monsters” that we face are real but we can’t see them, thankfully. Satan and his demons and principalities can cause real problems in your life. Our only defense is to study God’s Word and have many scriptures memorized so we can use them to fend off their attacks. When you consider all of the wars and problems and everything that is going on in the world, take a look at where these things are happening. Notice that most of them are taking place where God or Jesus or both are not embraced by the culture or the country.

If you don’t believe in God or His Son, Jesus, as your Savior then what are your gods? Who or what do you ask for help in times of need and illness or trials? There is no name under Heaven that brings salvation except the name of Jesus! The previous sentence is a paraphrase of Acts 4:12 but it is the Truth. Believing in Jesus as your Savior and Lord is the only way to get to Heaven or to experience eternal Life! You can keep following other ways or other “prophets” or even other “gods” but none of them will give you life in eternity except Jesus. Others will lead you strait to hell for eternity and that is not Life.

What is in your closet? Is it an old, dusty Bible that you haven’t read in years? Then I suggest getting it out and dusting it off so you can read it and seek God and His Son in its pages. Eternal life is found in no other name except Jesus so make sure that you know Him and that He knows you too while there is still time in this life to make that choice.