Do you wonder about our priorities or the priorities of someone you see at a store? I do. When tax time comes around or this “stimulus check” comes around, how many people take care of needs with that money? Then again how many do you see coming out of a store with big TV’s or brand new phones? Almost every year when a little so-called “extra money” comes into our hands we use it for things or stuff. What about giving God His tithe on the money that you get? Don’t you think that He deserves a portion of His money to keep His Kingdom priorities going? It is His money after all, He only gives us what we need because of our abilities which He gave to us.
Your abilities and talents were given to you by God before you were born. The job that you get and the salary that comes with it are from Him. Your raises and your promotions come from Him not from your own efforts. God is the provider of all good things but He also tests us when we need to be tested. The only necessity is Jesus.
Jesus is Life and our Creator and it is through Him alone that we move every day and have our life and our being. Eternity awaits but only if you believe in Him for your salvation.
I think that many people who believe in Jesus truly need to stand up for their faith when it is questioned. Many believers don’t do this. Eight out of ten people who attend church seem to believe in Jesus but they don’t tell anyone else about it. The other two people do. They take their faith in Jesus and they told people about it. So twenty percent of of people who profess to know Him actually do because they show it to others. Take a look at this video and take it to heart. Then make sure that someone hears the message that you believe in your risen Savior because He died for your sins. He made way for you to be forgiven and changed so that you can take His message to everyone you meet.
Our God is able to give you the strength even when you think it is gone. Seek Him for your eternity and for your healing today.
Some people might think that what happened in this instance was just coincidence, but God is able to do anything even when there are people in the room who do not believe in Him. The foolish people of this world think that we are foolish because we believe God’s Word and they don’t. Even Satan and his demons know Who God is and they know that He is real! So if God’s adversaries know and believe in Him why do we who are created in His image tend to move in the opposite direction from belief?
Seek Jesus for your salvation so you can know for sure where your eternity is because this world is temporary but your salvation and your home is in Heaven. All you need to do is believe in Jesus to receive it and repent of your sinful ways. Ask Him to come into your heart and clean out all of the “old stuff” and place the Holy Spirit in there so that you will be a “new creation in Christ“.
Why did the people of the early church believe so strongly in Jesus and the offer of forgiveness and eternity so deeply they were willing to be killed because of it? Because they had eye-witness accounts of His ministry and most of all their account of His resurrection from the grave! What He endured for our atonement was enough to kill any man within a few hours if not before He was nailed to the cross. He wasn’t finished yet so He stayed alive until it was finished and when it was, He said so, “It is finished!”, and He gave up His Spirit. No one took His life, no one killed Jesus, He died when He was finished and He gave it up willingly.
If someone today had the message which He brought so long ago and they were being filmed for TV and someone shot them three times in front of the country, killing them. Then before the autopsy could be finished, they got up and showed themselves to the doctors and nurses and the world…would you believe in them as the Messiah? This very scene will play out one day but it won’t be Jesus but a false savior when it does happen. If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus then you will possibly see this “false savior” who would claim to be the so-called “savior of the world”. This person is the anti-Christ, the false Messiah and he will deceive many who are alive on that day.
The resurrection of Jesus is such a powerful witness that many people would die for their faith in Him and His promise of eternity. Life was in Him, true eternal life not some promise made by “just a man”. If you have access to a copy of the Book of Martyrs I would encourage you to read it. It is not an easy read because some of the descriptions are very graphic. But the people that you read about beginning with Stephen and continuing on into our present day had their hope in Jesus and they believed in Jesus for their Savior so deeply that they were willing to go through being crucified or burned alive or trampled by animals or killed and eaten by wild animals. No one dies willingly for a lie. God loves each of us and we have a message to take to the world. That message is: He is risen and alive! His Word is true and He is coming back one day soon, Amen.
If you are a Christian, are you working for Him? I don’t mean that you have to be a pastor or a deacon but are you living your daily life as a Christian? Again, you don’t need to be a Gideon, although that ministry does many good things for God. Gideon in scripture was a man who thought he was not a significant man, but God doesn’t always use a strong warrior to accomplish His purposes.
Remember the movie, Captain America? He began as a man who could not be in the Army because of his medical problems and he was a bit too small and weak. God loves to use people who can’t do what He asks because the job requires more than they have. He wants people who will submit to His will and do what He asks of them in faith. In many ways, God wants us to listen and obey His leading but we have to be willing to listen and really hear Him in our Spirit. Then we should DO what we hear Him telling us. Because when we hear Him but then decide that we can’t do what He is asking in a way we are admitting the truth.
We can’t do all of the things that God requires without Him and His Spirit giving us strenght and the ability to acomplish His will. Working with Him, our purpose is true and it will accomplish that which God desires to be done. So many go through life thinking that they have to earn their salvation when it was paid for on the cross fully and completely. All that is required of us is that we believe in Jesus and that His work did this.
Today we celebrate His Resurrection and His victory over death and our eternity purchased by His blood which cleanses us from the stain of sin. Believe in Him for your salvation and you can be in heaven with Him for eternity.
Are you trusting the government to “fix this pandemic”? Does anyone in our government even know or have an idea what this really is? Yes, it is a disease with similarities to the flu but no one knows the period of infection or the transmission vector other than through the air by droplets or possibly by touching a surface that may be contaminated. As far as we know it wasn’t engineered by anyone it just started infecting people but the strangest part of this virus is that it can cross over to animals like dogs, cats, even tigers. There aren’t many viruses which can do this. Did it catch us by surprise? I think it did. It began in China last fall and it is contagious enough that with our mobile population it has spread all around the world in about six months.
When will this virus go away? Nobody knows for sure. It may level off for a while during the summer months, but it may come back this fall or during the winter, we just don’t know. But…God does. Is He responsible for sending this virus into the world? I don’t know, but it’s possible. He could be using it to get our attention and get us to turn back to Him. We’ve pushed Him and most of His laws and His Word out of education and from most of our public places like courtrooms. When Israel did that, God used the Babylonians and the Syrians to come and enslave them until they turned to God and begged Him to send them a savior.
Sometimes this would work for a while, but usually in a short period of time they would be right back to worshiping other “gods” and He would have to get their attention again. Why are we so hard headed when it comes to following and worshiping God? We will do it for a while and do it faithfully, but when the hard times ease up we usually move to the point of, “We’ve got this, God you can go back to your house until we need you again”. God provides the air that we breathe and the water that we drink and every bite of food that we eat. Where in that sentence do you see a place where we DON’T NEED GOD!?
I know that many of you think that all of those things which I listed have been available to us for thousands of years so why should you thank God for them now? Okay, hypothetically, lets say tomorrow you wake up and you are having a really hard time breathing or getting enough air to let you be able to move. Would you blame God or would you seek Him out and beg Him to help you? If the doctors can’t find a reason for it and can’t really help you except by putting you on a respirator, don’t you think you should be talking really seriously to the Creator Who formed you in the womb? Since He is the only One that can help you at this point? Now how wonderful does that air feel when you take a breath?
God does love each of us deeply and He has provided everything that we need to live. He also provided a Savior to atone for all of your sins and mine so that we could be with Him in Heaven one day. You don’t know when your appointment will come to meet Him but it is coming. It could be tomorrow or next week, are you ready to meet Him? Do you know Him? Does He know you as a friend and an apostle? If you can’t answer those questions positively and without doubt, then you need to be seeking Him in His Word and through honest, heartfelt prayer too.
If you meet Him before I do, I pray that you will be known by Him as a “faithful servant” even if it was for a day or two or twenty years even. You need to make sure while you can in this life.
The bluebird knows it is April, and soars toward the Sun and sings. –Eben Eugene Rexford (1848–1916)
When you consider the birds of the air or even the fish and other animals in the wild, all of them depend on God for their lives. Their food and their shelter are provided for them by the grace and power of God. Now you can say that it is just instinct or the way that these animals are taught by their “parents” but that doesn’t work for many of them.
Think about sea turtles. They live for many years but they never actually know their mother or their father. They are born from an egg which has been laid in the sand by their mother but when they are born she is not there. They have to frantically race to the sea and many of them don’t make it. Birds scoop up these little ones by the hundreds before they ever enter the sea and even then they are small enough to be eaten by some fish. God provides them with the knowledge to find places to hide and to find food because this is where so-called “instincts” come from.
Why am I speaking about animals? Because God cares for them. He knows when one of them comes to the end of their life and falls to the ground or dies in the sea or anywhere they are. Since God cares for and knows about their death just as much as He knows and cares about each of us. He cares and knows about each of us in a more intimate way because we are made in His image! We are given talents and gifts by Him to use for His Kingdom in this life until our time is up. God knows your day of birth and He knows the day of your death, but in between those times we are supposed to work for Him in every area of our life.
Some of us push Him away for a while because we think that we can do it on our own, but we can’t. Many of us hear His call on our life and just ignore it and we have many problems come up in our life. These problems usually come in the form of sickness or some other problem for which we need His hand or His strength to get through. Sometimes we will turn to Him and follow Him after these things and sometimes we become angry and push Him away. Don’t consider that you can outsmart God, He knew which reaction that you would exhibit. So if you’ve pushed Him away, He will try another one.
God uses every area of your life for His Kingdom. You don’t have to be a pastor or a deacon or a missionary…just be you. God created each of us with a unique gift or ability which nobody else has and He can and will use that gift for His Kingdom and glory even if it doesn’t happen until your last day on this Earth. Each of us has a date with destiny and we will meet God on that day. It is up to you and your decision to give your heart to Him even if you only have a minute to live…don’t waste it.
God knows when a sparrow falls to the ground lifeless and dead. Since He cares enough about His creation to notice when a small bird dies, don’t you think that He knows what you are doing and how your health and welfare are? God gives each of us the ability to get up and serve Him each and every day and until He decides that your ministry is done you will live until that day!
Our lives and every word that we speak as Christians is part of our ministry. Everyone who sees you and knows that you are a Christian can see Him in your steps every day. If they don’t know you well enough to know that you are a Christian they may still watch you to see how you react to every situation. Christians react to every problem and trial in a very different way from those who don’t know Jesus. Why? Because we know the One Who holds tomorrow so we don’t need to worry about it.
Jesus said that “I will never leave you nor forsake you“, God said the same thing to Moses and Joshua. There is nothing that we cannot accomplish in His strength when we allow Him to guide us each day. Do not worry about this virus which is all over the world today, God will limit its path and will stop it when it has accomplished the thing which it was put into the world for. He uses disease and other trials to bring us closer to Him which is exactly what our country and those in the world who don’t know Him truly need this day.
Pray this prayer: Heavenly Father, I know that you know what is going on in my life. I need your strength to get through this and your provision for my daily life. Please touch those in my family and those around me who are also going through this trial. It may be this virus or cancer or some other trial but with your strength and your Presence in my heart and my life I know that everything will turn out just fine. Thank you for giving your Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice on the cross and resurrecting Him so that I can have the hope of eternity if I believe in Him. I ask you now to bring that belief to fruition in my heart and help me to become a child of yours forever. Forgive me of those sins that I have done and help me to walk in the newness of Life everlasting. In Jesus’ name I pray this prayer, Amen.
How many people claim to be Christians when they rarely attend church services? I’ve heard the “excuses” about worshipping from a deer stand or while fishing. I’ve heard that there isn’t enough time in the morning to get ready for church. I’ve heard that they would rather worship from home because of something that they have heard about “those people” who attend this church or that church.
These are just excuses which Satan plants in their minds to justify not going to church. Right now we’re not in church because of a virus and people are afraid to gather in a church. The governor has ordered no business or gathering of more than ten people in a building. What do you think will happen when this crisis is over? Will we bounce back to living a normal life again? I’m not sure what will happen, but our country will have a new “normal” and we might not like it very much.
Getting back to my original question. Do you really know Jesus? Why do many people claiming to be “Christians” yet they don’t go to church unless it is a holiday or when there is someone sick in their family? Now, I don’t want you to get the impression that I am saying that there are many people who want to have nothing to do with the church or Jesus Himself. But in the end many people will be disappointed when Jesus says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”
Living the Christian life is not an easy thing to do. Some people may think that it is “just getting my fire insurance” to keep from going to hell. It that is how you look at it, then you may end up where you don’t want to be anyway. The surrendered, repentant Christian that has truly had a heart change because of Jesus’ influence and presence does much more than just go to church. They read their Bible daily, they study the meaning of what they have read, they pray about what they read and hear at church, some may become the pastor of a church or a deacon. A Christian is a target for Satan and his demons and they will try to ruin your witness in every way possible.
Jesus told His disciples that they would have trials and tribulation in this world. So by extension we should expect the same thing. It will not be easy or fun to be a born-again Christian but living your life with your eye focused on Jesus will allow you to walk through those trials knowing that He is right there with you. God is always near, Jesus is always near and the Holy Spirit is living inside of you IF you are born again, so you have a part of the Trinity living with you ALL of the time! How awesome is that! Some people may think that the Holy Spirit is a weak part of the Trinity but He is just as much God as Jesus is and God the Father is!
All of us make excuses, especially when we don’t feel like going to church. But God knows your heart and He knows what your real reason is and you can’t fool Him. Seek Him in your hard times and your good times but especially during the times when you don’t know what is going on and few others know the answers either. The news today is full of guesses because nobody knows how long this virus and its effects on America and the world will last or even how bad it will actually be before it is through. God knows exactly how long it will last and what it will take to cure it or stop it. He is in control, don’t ever doubt that.
For Christians who have given their hearts and their lives to Jesus the Christ it is His sacrifice and His death on the cross so many years ago. What motivates you to do the things which Jesus commanded his apostles to do? It was the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb after three days. He fulfilled His own prophecy. He is our motivation. Jesus is the Son of God and it was His willing sacrifice which paid the price for your soul and for mine.
His humanity, the frail body of flesh and the knowledge of the pain and suffering which He was about to go through…it was all of that and more that caused Him to pray so fervently and deeply that He was sweating drops of blood. He was shedding blood during His prayer before He was arrested to go through a mock trial. He was asking His Father for the strength to go through the ordeal that He knew was about to come upon Him.
Eternity was paid for by the blood of Jesus. He paid that price for all of humanity, not just the Jewish people or the Syrians, or those in Africa or China or in a country which didn’t exist at the time…America. He could see down through time that each of our lives would mean so much. Not just because we would give our hearts to Him as new followers but because of those that each of us may have some influence in some way to bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are His ambassadors in the place where we work and live and even on the Internet if we will carry His message to them.
Blood was shed in the Garden to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. God provided the lamb which gave its life to provide its skin to cover them and their nakedness. When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God provided a ram to be the sacrifice instead. There are many other examples in the Old Testament where God provided food and water for people who didn’t believe in Him and didn’t want to follow Him. But when they got into trouble or in captivity by a conqueror from another land, they cried out to God for help. When He delivered them they would follow Him faithfully for a while but then they would drift away from His love and His purpose. This pattern happened over and over again but God never really left them alone. He was always there even when He would tell them that He wasn’t going to hear their prayers.
Why am I writing this today? Because there are many people who need to hear it. Jesus loves you. God loves you and if you read His Word you can find His love in almost every book of it. He came in the form of Jesus His Son so that you and I could be redeemed and our sins would be forgiven so that we would be able to stand in His Presence and tell Him one day that Jesus’ blood has covered our sins and have Jesus stand with us saying that “This person belongs to Me”. That will be the most wonderful feeling that all believers will ever have. To know that the Creator loves you and He gave His Son as the perfect sacrifice for each of us so that we can be made in the likeness of Jesus.
The Creator came into Creation as the perfect lamb, without blemish or spot so that each of us have a chance to be saved from our sins and our sinful nature. He changes each of us inside all the way down to our soul so that we will be a new person. Not the same person that we were but a forgiven and redeemed person clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Seek Him while there is time because without Jesus there is no salvation and there is no way to enter in Heaven without Him.
In the world today we have all sorts of “sides”. There is the Left and the Radical Left, then there is the Right and the Radical Right. Then of course you have Centrist and those who try to walk in or near the center but still leaning to the Right or the Left. Even in most movies which are popular there are stark contrasts between the hero and the villain, good and evil, light and dark. The same can be said of the Bible and the ideologies espoused in many other religions. So what can we do? Is there really a right or wrong way to live and be and act…or do we just follow our own ideas so that each person has their view of right and wrong regardless of how society perceives it?
If we followed our own version of right and wrong regardless of the way it makes others feel there would be total anarchy and riots and possibly wars all over this land and elsewhere. But this is not the way to be according to our actual rule book given to us by God Himself. The Bible teaches that we are to love each other as we love ourselves and to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
So…why don’t we follow these simple rules?
Because these rules came from Jesus’ gospel. It isn’t that they are hard to do but many people who think that they are Christians don’t like to be limited by rules even as simple as these. God knows which person is actually a Christian believer and who is not. Does it matter? Yes, because many will come to the throne one day claiming that they have served the Lord for many years and He will say “Depart from Me because I never knew you“.
God knows the heart of each person and He sees exactly what each of us thinks and does in our lives, whether we do those things for Him or against Him. God is present here and in Antarctica and in Russia and France and Saudi Arabia and not just in those places but in places which may not even know or recognize Him at all. He is the Creator and the Father of us all but most importantly He is the Father of Jesus the Christ Who came to Earth two thousand years ago to fulfill the will of God that we would have a chance to know Him and be in His Presence into eternity. His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, touches our hearts and shows us the kind of people we truly are and it is then that we know that we need Jesus as our Savior.
That is the time of conviction and knowledge that we cannot be saved on our own or by our own choice but by Him and through Him we can come to know Him Who loved us so much that He gave His Son for our sins in order that we would be adopted into His family. So many in the world today don’t want to accept this and they are more afraid of a virus than they are of the Creator. He is the creator of it, whether it is the flu or a corona virus or the common cold and it is by His power that we will overcome it or not. If we do not then we go to be with Him. If we do, then we can tell of the wonderful saving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ!
There are always two sides to every decision and every fence and every road that you take, your future will depend upon which one you choose to follow.
The Living Message of Christ 