Send me…

If you will humble yourself…

Creation declares the majesty of God

The Lord’s will prevails

Demons…

There are many “demons” in our world. They don’t look like the movies or even what most of us think they would look like. Some of them are drug addiction or even alcoholism that so many people deal with. Others are the diseases that we have to deal with that cause addiction, to begin with. No one knows how badly it affects people, but Satan knows how to cause people to become addicted.

People don’t really believe that demons or even Satan exist. That is why is it so easy for him to manipulate those who have no spiritual background. I’m not talking about “new age” spiritualism, I’m talking about those who have been to a Bible-teaching church. These are people who attend church but they think they are saved because of the church they attend. Some think that because their family has always been in this church, they are saved. That is not what Jesus said. He said, “He who believes in Me shall have eternal life“.

We don’t become Christians by osmosis, we become Christians when the Holy Spirit convicts our Spirit that we need Jesus as our Savior and we believe in Him for our salvation. It is our choice but it is also a daily walk with Him. Prayer and reading God’s Word DAILY, not just on Sunday, is where you engage Him on a daily basis and learn from Him every day. The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us about Jesus when we are doing our part by reading the Bible every day.

Many people would say that they don’t have time to read the Bible every day, but God gives us the same amount of time every day. We make time for things that don’t mean anything to our lives but we won’t do the very thing that will help us to live according to His Word. God loves us and He knows what is in your heart. Make sure of your walk with Him and your Salvation because the time of the church and this age of grace is coming to an end. What day that may be no one knows but God Himself but if you compare today’s news with the prophecies you can see that our world is coming to the end of our time.

It could be a few years or maybe a decade but I don’t believe it will be more than that. I pray that everyone who reads this will seek Him for your salvation because not one of us is given more than today to seek Him.

Do you believe?

There are many who think that they do. Mark 11:22 is where Jesus told His disciples to “have faith in God and all things are possible”. The kind of faith that He was speaking of is one that is not swayed by feelings or problems. It is the kind of faith that allows you to believe even when things don’t look good or when things are not going the way you want them to. I think of people who go to church and study their Bibles yet they get a diagnosis of cancer. Does your faith give you the strength to stand up to that?

Many people’s faith doesn’t. Why? Because, in my opinion, they don’t think that God cares enough about them or their problems, their faith and belief in Him is not strong enough to stand up to their problems. It is not easy to believe that our Creator loves us this much. Especially when we can’t see Him or the evidence of His love but it is all around us. He gives us the food that we have to live on and the air that we breathe. He gave His Son to pay the price for our sins so that we could be redeemed from the penalty of those sins.

There is an unending supply of evidence that God loves each of us but many of us choose not to see it. We go through our lives every day and we live by the same rules that we have lived by all of our lives, some of them are His rules and some are not. The point is that we choose to pay little attention to the details that He takes care of when we can’t. He takes care of many details that we may never be aware of, like an accident that we avoided because He caused us to be a little later getting on the road. We may blame Him for causing us to be late but if we had been there when we intended, we could’ve been hurt in an accident.

There are likely many things that God does for us in the background that we aren’t aware of now, but we may find out about them when we are in His Presence one day. Then we will know about the little details that He took care of when we didn’t know He was doing it. Your faith in His should be based on all of the things that you can read about in His Word. Not because He did it two thousand years ago but because He can still do it today. Remember, Jesus said that we can do the things that He did and even greater…but it is likely dependent on our faith and our belief in Him.

Do you believe in Him?

There are times that I notice people who say they believe in His power to save and His power to heal but it seems to be more of a “head knowledge” kind of belief rather than a deep, heartfelt conviction. The way I look at the Bible and God and Jesus and all of their abilities is based solely on what He has done in the past and what He will do now…if we will have the conviction to follow through. Remember, a conviction in this sense is a strong belief and is deeply held. It is not swayed by the opinions of others.

It was conviction that began the church after Jesus was resurrected and then taken up to prepare a place for His people. Ideas and a belief that is only knowledge of a fact or a memory is not the same. Peter and the other disciples would never have started the beginnings of a church or a movement without a true conviction that their Savior lives and in all of the promises that they heard from Him. A deeply held conviction cannot be shaken even when everything around you is not going according to your plan. God is still behind the scenes, moving the pieces so that “all things will work for your good“.

Prayer and reading His Word daily will strengthen your faith and your convictions about Him. Although many of us who claim to be walking with Him only do so when we are at church. We don’t practice our beliefs when we are at the doctor’s office or when we are traveling or at work. That is not the part of our life that we allow God to invade unless we need Him to. We need to remember that “God came and walked in the garden“, He wanted to be near and with His Creation, Adam. The only time we read this is after they have eaten of the fruit that they were not supposed to eat, but I believe that God walked with them to teach them every day. How else would they learn?

Belief and conviction are different sides of the same coin. One is just an intellectual knowledge where you have read about God’s miracles and you know that He has done this in the past. The other is based on that but it is deeper meaning that He is still doing those things today. God didn’t stop performing miracles in the first century, He is still doing it even now somewhere in the world. Take that into your heart and believe it with enough conviction that those problems that you are having or going through are being fixed by the Creator as you pray. Just believe it in faith.

Who are you?

That is the title of a great song. To answer the question that is being asked would take many words. It is safe to say that none of us are who we thought we would be when this time came. Some of us think that we know who we are, but do we really? Since you were in grammar school life’s experiences have made changes in you and in the person that you are right now. Some of those changes are good and some…not so much. What is my point? We are not genetically disposed to be this way or that other than being either a male or a female. Your genetics also control your eye and hair color and to some extent your personality and your skin color too.

But much of our everyday persona is learned behavior. We learn it from our parents and our friends and from everyone that we are exposed to in school. When we were in junior high school we would change our ideas almost daily just to be liked by those we aspired to be like.

So…who are you?

Each of us is the sum total of all our life experiences, good or bad. In many ways, it is hard to believe that we haven’t blown each other up long before now. We are still here, not because humanity is getting better, but because God is not finished with us yet. There are still some prophecies that need to be fulfilled including the state of Israel and its people recognizing their Messiah.

Cultures around the world are very different from each other because of their “life experiences” and most of our wars would never have happened if we were all more like Jesus. But we can’t be that good, at least not on our own. One day soon, we will see the Son of God. and the church will be taken up. When that happens, the whole world will know that the Bible was true. I pray that many more will seek Him out as their Savior before then.

Are you grown up?

When you are younger, growing up is not easy. Oh, we enjoy recess period at school and we enjoy our summer breaks but there are many things that we don’t enjoy. Homework, tests, pop-tests, falling and skinning your knees…all of these things are hard and hurtful at times but they help us to learn. So…are you grown up? Some of us are and some of us are keeping back some part of our life to keep from being grown up into maturity.

Have you given your life to Jesus and asked Him to come into your heart to be your Savior? Have you surrendered your life to Him fully? A fully surrendered life is given as a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of your entire being to the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we rightfully belong. He paid for your salvation and mine through His death, burial, and resurrection and since He is our Creator, He is entitled to our whole being. But, we must voluntarily give it to Him.

This is something that we have a very hard time doing. We are individuals and we enjoy being free to do as we please. But when you give your life and your heart to Jesus, you have to give Him the whole of yourself, not just a part of you. This is what I’m talking about when I mentioned being “grown-up”. Maturing as a Christian is not an easy task because we want to have control over many parts of our lives. We need to seek His counsel in every part of our lives not just our spiritual lives. He wants to be involved in all areas of your life. Why? Because He loves us!

The problem comes because we live our lives daily for many years without thinking about Jesus. We go to grammar school and sometimes junior high without considering Him or even His ways. Sometimes we may even live through college and into our “adult” life without Him fully in our life. I don’t understand how people can live like this but it seems that many do. Living a life that is surrendered to Jesus is a conscious, deliberate decision and it is one that we must do every day. It isn’t easy but it can be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. Doing this or trying to do this on your own will not work.

The little planet that God created for us to live on is the focus of His attention in the universe. Why? Because the people that He chose to bring the Messiah into the world through are here. God created the universe and our little planet too. He created the stars and galaxies and all of the life that is on our little planet and He did it to make life interesting. When sin was brought into our world it corrupted all of creation, not just mankind. That is why there are so many problems and things that are not right in the world. One day in the future, the corruption that sin caused will be taken away. What a wonderful day that will be.

Seek Jesus and learn to be His disciple every day. Grow up in your faith and in your walk with Him so you can be more useful to Him and His Kingdom. It will take time but it will be worth it.