Our Creator…the Creator of everything. The Savior of all who will believe. Our God Who sees us as we are and loved us even before we were born. The Father of Jesus the Christ and the Lamb of God Who gave His life as a ransom for ALL of our sins. The One Who named the stars and placed them in their places. He is All knowing and all powerful. The One Who was and is and is to come. He is the One Who defends the helpless and heals those who are blind or deaf or paralyzed. He can soften a heart grown cold from abuse and neglect and make it to hope in the future and see His great love for them. He loves each of us, whether we believe in Him or not, just because He is God. He doesn’t have to have a reason or an excuse to do everything that He does because He is Life, Love, Perfection, Time and everything that is good and holy in the universe.
Since God is all of these things and more and yet He is holy and pure…how could you believe that you or I could stand in His Presence one day and even consider that we are worthy to be allowed into Heaven? We were in His thoughts before the Earth was formed and the moon was hung in its place. He thought of each of us before He hung the stars or our Sun in its place. So how could we be holy and blameless before Him unless we give our lives to learning from His Word and living our daily lives by striving to be more like Jesus? The answer is simple…we can’t! There is nothing that any of us can offer to God or live by on our own that will qualify us to be granted access to Heaven.
Only by believing in Jesus as our Savior can we be in God’s Presence because we loved Jesus more than our own life. I pray that all who read this post will seek to be saved by belief in Jesus as your Savior because the day is coming soon. Don’t be left behind when the church, the Body of Christ, meaning all believers are taken up to be with Him.
Life matters regardless of skin color or ethnicity
God created all life on our world and He created the different shades of color found in humanity as well as all of the variety of life and colors found in nature. So…why can’t we look beyond our skin color? It has been over fifty years since Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered by a white supremacist and yet those on both sides of this tragedy still haven’t moved beyond the same anger and frustration fifty years later.
Life does matter and it doesn’t matter if it is a black life or a white life or any other skin tone, in God’s eyes ALL of life matters. So why can’t we realize this and find something in common and work from there? I do realize that there are many things that the white “race” has done in the past and in many ways are still agreeing with even today. Even though today we don’t vocalize it for the most part. Our crime of being racist is shown in how we react to the situation that we may find ourselves in. We may think that we aren’t showing a racist attitude toward anyone but our body language and our eyes show something else entirely, even though we may not even realize that we do these things unconsciously.
Is there a way to end the violence and the hatred in this world which has been sparked into a raging fire? I don’t know that we can find one without Jesus coming back and ruling our world. I don’t really believe that we have the ability to place our emotions and our prejudices aside in order to bring lasting peace into our world and keep it that way. Now, I’m not pointing a finger at any government or any other movement in the world. Black lives do matter but so do the police and fire service men and women. The EMT’s lives matter, who try to help those who are injured or shot in any confrontation. The doctors and nurses lives matter because regardless of color or “race” they do their best to put people back together who have been hurt regardless of the circumstances.
Yes, in the past people have treated other people differently because of their skin color or their station in life even, but that doesn’t give you or me the right to go into the street and burn down small businesses and homes and threaten people with harm for no reason other than the color of their skin! When you are doing that you are no different than the ones who did this to your ancestors many years ago. We are living in the twenty-first century but many people are acting as if they are still in the 19th century. If things keep going in that direction and someone sets an EMP off one day we will be back in the 19th century in the area that it affected.
God never intended for us to live like this or act in this way toward each other but we are doing it. Satan is the one who hates us and it has nothing to do with your skin color at all. Satan hates us because we were created in God’s Image. It is Satan’s coaxing and prodding which is pushing this movement to be as violent as it is and he doesn’t care if we kill off a few thousand or more because that is fewer than he will have to deal with later. God loves each of us and all of our unique abilities and our outlook on life. Seek to please God and walk with Him in this world so that you can be victorious against Satan and his influence over a world that seems to be crumbling around us.
We are a part of God’s creation whether we like it or not, whether we believe in Him or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that murder is wrong in every instance and it doesn’t matter if the one murdered is old or young, a cop or one of the crowd. Even suicide is wrong in God’s eyes because you are killing yourself and you are also created in God’s Image. He loves each of us and we should try to reflect some of His love back into the world and make it better than it was before…not worse.
There is so much evidence for His love for mankind until I would imagine that it hurts His heart when someone asks this. He loved us enough that He created Earth for us. He placed it at the right distance from our Sun so that it isn’t too hot or too cold. He put the right mixture of gases in our atmosphere so that plants and animals of all kinds could grow along with us. Our planet has an abundance of water and the right nutrients in it for all of the life in the oceans and rivers.
God also sent Jesus to pay the penalty of our sin debt so that we could live into eternity with Him one day if we will place our faith in Jesus for our salvation. That is the one gift which we have that no other part of creation has or can understand…the gift of God’s love and His atonement for our sins through His Son, Jesus. This gift from God is by no amount of worth on our part. We cannot earn it nor can we purchase it in any way other than our deep belief in Jesus as our Savior. That is the easiest purchase that we can ever make because we don’t have to spend anything for it. Just believe in Jesus for your salvation and ask Him for your forgiveness of your sinful life before you knew that you needed Him.
God calls us to come to Him through His grace and He gives us enough faith to believe and repent in order to be saved. It has nothing to do with your idea of being saved or your decision of going to church to be saved. When His Holy Spirit convicts your heart of your need of Him, you will respond one way or the other. Choose the right way and trust in Jesus for your salvation. Time is growing short and when He comes for His church you do want to be in the number of those called home to Heaven.
Psalm 103 is a good example of David’s poetry which states that God’s character is always good. In the very first line he writes, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name”. David is not saying that he was going to bless the Lord. What he wrote and said was that he would bless the Lord with all of himself! Physically, spiritually and emotionally he would praise and worship the Lord with every fiber of his being.
God desires the praise and worship of His children but not because He can’t be satisfied with us because we are His children. He desires our praise and worship because of His mercy that He extends to each of us every day. If God did not bless us with our breath and our life each day then we would either be with Him or in hell, depending upon our belief in Jesus for our salvation. God has specific jobs for each of us as believers and we are to seek His wisdom in His Word to find those jobs. It isn’t listed on page 22 in the third paragraph but when you read His Word you can understand, with the Holy Spirit’s help, what God requires of each of us.
He requires obedience to His Word. Of course, the New Testament is our contract because most of the Old Testament is actually sent to the Jewish people. The promises found in the Old Testament are still relevant to us because of the prophecies which are still going to be fulfilled and the promises are partially contained within those prophecies. Each covenant in the Bible explains and confirms the other so you can’t just read the New Testament without the Old Testament. They both are necessary because the whole Bible is God’s inspired Word. He gave it to mankind so that we could learn from His wisdom if we will only read it and do what it says.
In verse 12 of Psalm 103, David writes something which many of us have heard but maybe never knew exactly where it came from. Verse 12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us”. When we pray for God’s forgiveness for something that we have done or something that we said, He puts that sin and its consequences away from us just as David says “as far as the east is from the west”. It is completely gone! God doesn’t place it in a box to be brought out later to torment us because when He sees that it is covered by Jesus’ blood it is forgotten and remembered no more.
That doesn’t mean that we forget it because our memories and our guilt are still present here and now and of course Satan will bring it up and beat us with it as well. So we can’t forget it easily but God has. God’s mercy is everlasting and He grants this to each of us who believe in Jesus for salvation. We don’t have to earn it or pay for it or anything like that. We just have to believe in Jesus and ask for forgiveness in His name. Then we need to walk away from that sin or behavior and never visit it again. That is the hard part for us because sometimes our sin involves something that we really like to do, but we should ask for His strength to stay away from it. One day at a time.
Life is not easy like most people think it is and especially for Christians who are trying to live and walk on the pathway leading to heaven. It is narrow and it has thorns and stones which we may trip on. We can look around from this path and see the things that were our problems before and Satan will make them look so tempting trying to get us to get off of the pathway. That is where prayer for each day comes in handy. Thank God each day that you wake up so that you can take His message to others, even if it is only one person that you tell. They may be the person that you are the only contact with for God that they will have and by saying something about God or your salvation God may use it to draw them to Himself.
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34Take, therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:25-34
Why do we worry about stuff today? We see so much violence and hatred on the news and it causes us to worry about our lives and our children. But…why should we worry? God has the world in His hands and He is in control. Our worry and being anxious doesn’t change anything and we can’t make a significant dent in any of the so-called “news” stories on our own. So, hand your cares over to God and lean on Him for your comfort.
God has told us through Jesus Christ during His ministry that worrying about tomorrow won’t change anything. We should handle what is going on in our day, today because tomorrow isn’t here yet. Your life and mine can only exist in today’s time. Yesterday is over with and tomorrow hasn’t come yet. I know we are all anxious because of this disease which suddenly came upon the world and the economic downturn which happened because of it. Now we have hate and bigotry in the streets which is being shown on the news daily and that has added to our anxiety.
We are living in the last days before the Tribulation begins. How soon that will come about no one knows except God Himself and we will find out when He says for the angels to come and get His bride. You can decide to believe His Word or not but since He doesn’t lie then I believe Him. The thing which we have to remember is that we can’t do anything to bring it on sooner or to influence the outcome in any meaningful way. God is in control and no matter what we do, He will accomplish what He has determined to do.
The only useful thing that any of us, as believers, can do is to study His Word and pray that everything goes according to His plan. Of course, it always works according to His plan because He is God! Thinking about some crazy terrorist or some “alien” encounter which might upset God’s plan is not productive because He knows about them and He will use them, regardless of who “them” is.
Be useful to God’s Kingdom so that He will find you working for Him when He comes. Then you may hear those words, “Well done my good and faithful servant, come into your inheritance and the joy of your Lord.”
That is my reward, I hope, and maybe yours too. Seek to please Him more than men because in eternity it is God’s favor that you should seek through the blood of Jesus.
In John 14:16 the apostle affirms this promise: 16 And I will pray to the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.
The Comforter which Jesus was speaking of is the Holy Spirit which all believers have living within them to teach them and guide them in their service to God. It is only by His strength that we can fulfill the position of a believer in His Kingdom. We can’t do it in our own strength but with the Spirit of Truth living within our hearts we can!
The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity which makes up God Himself so we have a small portion of God living within us when we become believers. Some of us don’t live as if we have Him living within us and it is to those who think they have something that they don’t have that this is being written. I am not trying to judge your heart because only God can do that but I am trying to spare you from a fate which will come upon many on the day of judgment.
Those of us who live in America have been blessed immeasurably by God just to be where we are. But our place of birth has also lead many to think that they are saved from hell just because of a family tradition or a prayer whispered when they were young and never considered again. We live in a culture that claims to believe in God and many do but so does the Devil himself! That is what is so damning for many of us. Culturally we believe that we are Christians because we have been brought up in the church. We have attended Sunday school and Bible school and may have attended church services on a regular basis.
But attendance doesn’t make you a Christian. Belief in God doesn’t make you a Christian. Knowing some scriptures and even attending revivals doesn’t make you a Christian. It is your heartbroken conviction that brings you to the cross and to the place where you know that you NEED Jesus as your Savior and you ask Him to come into your life and change your heart so that you can be a Christian.
Satan knows that Jesus is the Son of God and so do all of the demons in hell but they won’t serve Him. Knowledge of Him and attendance in church doesn’t make you a Christian. In the past one hundred years, our country has heard and seen many evangelists who brought the message of salvation to radio and television many times but superficial knowledge of God or Jesus doesn’t change your life. Even owning and occasionally reading a Bible at home doesn’t make you a Christian. It is the conviction of your heart that brings you to Jesus, asking to be made into a new creation, forever changed into a Christian
I pray that all who will read this will give their hearts to Jesus and ask Him to make them into His true disciples so that others may hear from your point of view how Jesus changed your life.
In a relationship don’t you keep your promises? Particularly to your significant other?
God has always kept His promises to us because He loves us. He sent Jesus to pay the debt for our sins and not just American Christians but for all Christians in the world. Yet, somehow we think that we are special and that we deserve His favor. None of us deserve His favor or His grace or His love but God has given us those things because of His love for us not because of what we deserve!
Why would that be true? We have pushed Him out of nearly every government office and building. We have taken Him and His Word out of schools and there are many who are trying to get any reference to Him out of our country so they won’t have to hear about Him or His Son again.
In Matthew 6: 25, 31-34 God promises to meet our needs. Here is the text of those verses:
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Every promise that God made with anyone in the Bible, He has kept. Even if the promise hasn’t come to completion yet. All of the promises leading up to it have been. So why do so many people doubt the existence of God or His love for us? Why is it that one part of humanity considers themselves to be the apple of His eye and yet they don’t seem to follow Him any better than the rest of the world?
God’s promises are sure and yet we doubt Him and His Word all of the time. Do you believe His promises for His provision in your life? I do.
I have been pushing the lawnmower and I will ask Him for a cloud or a little breeze to give me some relief from the heat. Most of the time it is provided. I know that many people won’t ask God for such little things but they aren’t little to me at the time. I have laid before Him the fact that we needed to pay this bill or that one and somehow the money is available. It may be just enough to pay the bill but He provides.
While it is true that many of the promises that are in the Old Testament are not available to us today, the promises in the New Testament are available to each of us who has given their life and their heart to Jesus. I don’t mean walking down and getting wet. I mean real, honest, and completely giving your heart to Him. Changing your life and living each day with Him, reading the Bible and learning more about Him and actually leaning on Him for your day to day, getting by kind of things.
Will God answer the prayers of one of His children who is living day to day with Him? If it’s asking for a million dollars, probably not. But if you are talking to Him and listening to His responses then what you ask for is usually in line with what He wants to give you and He’s waiting for you to ask for it. Is living by His side easy to do? No, it isn’t. There are so many temptations around us and Satan knows exactly which buttons to push to cause you to step off of the pathway that you were on. But, the closer you are walking with God it makes it harder for you to listen to anything that Satan says.
Hebrews 13:5 says: 5Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
As adopted children of God, if you are a believer, we should never covet or be enticed by something that someone else has. We should remember that our relationship with God is worth more than all of the money in the world! I know there is no way to spend it in this world and most people who would see you on a daily basis might not know about it. But the life that each of us has here on Earth is just a little while compared to eternity. Even the lives of the early children of Adam before the flood only lasted for a few hundred years but compare that to 100,000 years or 1,000,000 million years. Looking at those numbers, even Methuselah’s age of 969 years seems small.
Life today is not viewed with the respect that should be given to it. We don’t think about a child in the womb as being a person until they are outside the womb and making noise. People don’t view elders with gray hair as someone to respect and admire for the life they have lived. Historical figures such as George Washington Carver and Abraham Lincoln aren’t looked at with reverence today because they belong to a past that many people want to forget.
Jesus came and died for all of mankind’s sins even though He knew exactly who would believe in Him for their salvation and who will reject it. He took ALL of the sins of mankind on Himself when He was on the cross which is why God had to look away from Him for a time. He was never abandoned on the cross, God was still near Him but He could not look at His Son. God sees all of the trouble and pain which is happening and that has happened in our world. He knows who is responsible for it and for some things Satan is responsible for them…but not all evil comes from Satan.
Just before the flood, God saw that mankind’s heart was set toward evil continually and much of what we see and hear about today is caused by man as well. Humanity is capable of some great evil as history proves to us if people will read it and learn from it. Although they seem to be wanting to change the history that they don’t like these days.
God is always close to us and if we would just listen to His Word and live by it instead of our emotions and our own ideas the world would be a much better place.
Time seems to slow down with anticipation and speed up with our dread of an outcome or our age.
Time will never stop.
God’s promises are always on time and they are never late or early.
Psalm 46: 1-3 says: 1 …God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
God is as near to each of us as our next breath so regardless of the trouble we may be facing, He is there to strengthen us and comfort us in times of trouble. During the past few weeks, we have seen a lot of trouble in our nation and in the world itself. Racial tension has been drawn as tight as a bowstring and it seems to be near the breaking point.
Our people need to be drawing closer to God during this time but it seems that most of the people on the streets and in the news are more interested in pushing God away. This is really nothing new. God has been pushed to the edge of our collective conscience in America and in most other countries as well and it began during the early ’70s or late sixties. Once the people began to move away from Him, it has been very hard to get it to stop or reverse.
Numerous evangelists have preached to those who would listen and some did but the majority didn’t take their message about Jesus and His love for us to heart. I pray that there will be a revival in America and around the world but it seems that the part of the world that does not revere God or Jesus as their Messiah is just not interested. They seem to be inviting as much violence into the world as possible. That is not going to prompt God to send Jesus or the Tribulation any sooner than He has it planned for.
Violence and uprising, looting, and burning will do nothing for their “cause” except to draw the news crews out in force…which is what they want. The truth is not part of their narrative. Yet, they want any reference to ANY historical event from 140 years ago stricken from the public square or from TV or movies. Any reference to a figure which had anything to do with the Civil War regardless of their view on slavery should be taken down or destroyed.
Slavery was never sanctioned by the Bible and God never intended for us to enslave people but people are still being sold into slavery today. Particularly children. We, as a society, need to become more social with each other across racial barriers. In the culture that we live in today, it will be hard to do because of the hate and mistrust that is being spread on the Internet and in the news but it needs to be done!
When parents and grandparents teach their children that they are different from the other children it sends the wrong message. Yes, we have different skin colors and tones but we don’t have to hate each other because of that. Did history record that there were some really terrible things done to people in the past just because of their skin color? Yes, but if we change our view of each other today we can be an instigator of change in that area as well. But we need to look at each other not as black or brown or white or any other shade of color but as people who are made in God’s image.
1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The promise which we see illustrated in this passage has a condition attached to it of “If we confess our sins…”. Why would that be there? Mainly because of our need to be convicted of being a sinner and needing forgiveness. If we don’t think or feel that we need to be forgiven of our sins, whatever they may be, then we won’t seek the One Who can forgive them. Jesus Christ came and died to pay the penalty of our debt for our sins and it is only by having faith in Him for salvation that we will realize that we need Him and the forgiveness that is offered.
It seems that many people believe that they can come to Jesus any time they feel like it and everything will work out in the end. But until the Holy Spirit touches your heart and convicts you of your sinful nature, showing you that you truly do need Jesus, you won’t seek Him out because as far as you are concerned there is no need. It is our decision to turn away from our old way of living and to seek to follow Jesus but without being convinced of our need for salvation by the Spirit not one of us would ever go down that pathway. God knows which people will make that life-giving decision to follow Jesus and which ones will not but He doesn’t force this decision on anyone.
Walking with Jesus on a daily basis is not for the faint of heart. Satan and his demons will attack you with all sorts of temptations and they know exactly which buttons to push to get your attention. They will do this at night and during the daytime and when you see something you like or want and you know you shouldn’t get it. This is not a one-time temptation, it is ongoing. This is what Jesus meant when He said to “take up your cross and follow Me”. It is a daily fight which you will be living with but you won’t be alone. The Holy Spirit will be there with you every step of the way.
The best way that I can do this, and I am not successful at it all the time, is to wake up thanking God for today and everything it will bring. Be in the spirit of prayerful thankfulness during your day. If you feel a cool breeze thank Him for it. If you find a parking place that is convenient for you, thank Him for it. You get the idea. Every good and pleasant thing which comes your way during the day, no matter what it may be, thank Him for it!
Life is much easier when you do this but it is a way of life that has to be practiced. It doesn’t come naturally for us. We wouldn’t think of any of these little blessings at all if we weren’t saved through the blood of Jesus. When we were our natural selves being thankful probably didn’t come to mind unless our parents or grandparents taught us that while we were growing up. Even when they taught us this way, as my parents did, I still questioned why? What is the point of thanking God for something that I did?
The problem is that until we realize that He is in control whether we see Him or believe in Him or not we will continue to think that we did it. When it is God Who has given us the ability and the thoughts and knowledge to do what we do every single day! Seek Him and His Kingdom through Jesus Christ and every good blessing will be yours. That doesn’t mean that God will drop a block of gold in your yard but your strength will be renewed every morning, your day will be more like a pleasant walk than a grind to get through so do this every day, one day at a time until you are called home to be with Him.
The Living Message of Christ 