Category: Believe in the One Who saves

Are you broken?


In the past year or so I think we have all felt a little broken in some way. Some, I think, more than others. Especially the doctors and nurses who are on the front lines of treating this disease that doesn’t seem to yield to a vaccine. It just keeps mutating and changing and no one knows whether the shots will work against this one or that one and if it does work…for how long? Then, after all of this, there are the everyday diseases that take our loved ones and the criminals and others who shoot people for no real reason. The brokenness of our world and our lives, to one extent or another, just seems to keep expanding from one day to the next with no ending in sight. 

Where do we find solace? Can we find help in our lives that will bring some closure to this broken feeling that we have? Yes! By giving your heart to Jesus and following Him for the rest of your time on Earth you can have hope and a future regardless of what may be going on around you or in your life right now.

The news and the media that we get our news from are no help these days. Sometimes we hear good news and sometimes it is not such good news. Our families are beset with cancers and other diseases. Our children are being rebellious at times and even our job is not helping much with prices going up at the grocery store and the gas station. We look around and even on Friday, we may feel better because the weekend is here but then Monday comes and we have to endure it again.

This time that we are living in has been prophesied in the Bible. If you go to church or if you are curious, check it out in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. Jesus tells us that all sorts of problems will be happening just before the end of the age (the church age). We are living in that period of time right now and whether we choose to believe it or not won’t change that fact. All of the prophecies in the Bible have come true except for the Tribulation and the Rapture (taking away) of the church. The Rapture will happen first and when that day comes many will be blessed but there will be many more that will be left to live through the Tribulation period of seven years.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek to find a Bible-teaching church and make sure of your salvation. Read the books of John and Acts and Romans. Pray that God will touch your heart and draw you to become a follower of Jesus. The problems and the diseases that are being reported today are just the beginning. It will get much worse during the Tribulation so make sure that your soul and your heart belongs to Jesus Christ before that day comes.

Does God hear us?


Even on the days when we don’t think that He does…He can and does hear everything. Your fears, your needs, your prayers from your heart even when you can’t speak them aloud. God doesn’t abandon His children. Those He has chosen as His own are His and will be His for eternity. The problem is this: many of us who have been chosen don’t realize it…yet. Sometimes we feel His touch in our heart when we hear a sermon at the church we attend. Sometimes we will hear it in a song on the radio or a sermon on TV. If you read your Bible but have not given your heart to Jesus yet, occasionally the words on a specific page or from a specific verse will stand out to you. You can’t explain the reason for it but something from one of these has caused you to seek Him earnestly.

Why do we feel these feelings or notice a verse or something from a sermon? It is because God loves you! He has cared for you since before the Earth was formed. He has a plan for your life. God cares for you more than anyone else can! Do you feel that you don’t matter to anyone? You matter to God. He knows you and what you can be and do in this life because He is our Creator. He wove your DNA together in the womb with specific traits and abilities and your own personality so that you can be a blessing to Him and for His Kingdom. There is something that He wants you to do because you are the only one who can do it.

God knows every thought that everyone thinks so you can be sure He knows what you say in your prayer or even when you are talking to someone else. Our words, good or bad, are what others hear and they make their opinion of you because of what you say. Words may not break bones, but they can cause more pain and more deep wounds between siblings or friends than any weapon you could use. Words can cause wounds which never heal completely and they can cause more problems because of the way they are interpreted by those who hear the tone of your voice even if you didn’t intend to hurt someone’s feelings.

Yes, God hears every word. Whether He answers your prayers in this life or by taking you to heaven to give you a life that you could not have here…it is His prerogative, after all He is God. He doesn’t owe you anything and His timetable of answering your prayer or mine is His, not our idea of when He should do it. He knows your problems and your pains and He hears your prayers for your own life and for those that you love. God loves you more than anyone in this world and He loves you more deeply than anyone else could.

God gives you strength!


Amen

Where are you, God?


During our time of trouble and heartache we sometimes ask this question but do we expect an answer? According to Psalm 139 we can find God all around us in any situation that we find ourselves in. Here are a few verses from this Psalm to encourage you and me today:

You Have Searched Me and Known Me

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

1 O LORD, You have searched me

and known me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

You understand my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down;

You are aware of all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

You know all about it, O LORD.

5 You hem me in behind and before;

You have laid Your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

8 If I ascend to the heavens, You are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle by the farthest sea,

10 even there Your hand will guide me;

Your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,

and the light become night around me”—

12 even the darkness is not dark to You,

but the night shines like the day,

for darkness is as light to You.

13 For You formed my inmost being;a

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise You,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Marvelous are Your works,

and I know this very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You

when I was made in secret,

when I was woven together

in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all my days were written in Your book

and ordained for me

before one of them came to be.

This isn’t the entire Psalm but it gives us an overview of the way David looked at and thought about God and Who He is. God is not some prating old man or a genie like many try to make Him out to be. He is the Creator of everything and He needs nothing from us…but He does want our fellowship. Do we owe Him our fellowship? YES! Our next breath is in His hands, our next heartbeat is also in His hands. Everything that we live for and work toward should be in His hands. If your heart belongs to Him and you’ve accepted Him as your Savior then live like it!

Don’t walk around saying that you are a Christian and then go home or to a bar and drink alcoholic beverages. I’ve done this but it still tarnishes your witness toward others even if you are drinking at home, your family sees it and your Father in heaven sees it too. God is your Redeemer and your Creator so turn to Him for your relaxing times and your refreshing time by getting into His Word and learning from the One Who created you and knows you better than you know yourself.

This is how much God loves you!


Amen

Even in his sorrow…


25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. Job 19:25‭-‬27 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.19.25-27.KJV

Do you care?


Something that an atheist said a few years ago has brought this to mind today. You’ve heard this possibly because it has been on YouTube since about 2009. I also noticed when I was looking it up this morning that the man, Penn Jillette, has become a Christian. Here is the video, which I think I have shared before, and as one of the comments on YouTube said “that is the best 5 minute sermon I’ve ever heard”:

He is speaking about a Gideon who came up after his show and talked with him and gave him a Gideon’s New Testament with the Psalms. I pray that you will watch this video and take to heart what he is saying, especially about heaven and hell. We are living in some fearful times and because we are living very close to the “end of the age”, be careful to search your life and your heart. If there is any doubt about whether you belong to Jesus and He belongs to you, please seek Him and ask Him into your heart.

I am sending you!


Listen…


Have you ever noticed these two words: listen and silent

They contain the same number of letters and even the same letters as the other but they are arranged in a different order. Both are useful in a time of hurt and pain. When you need to listen, be silent. You can’t hear much when you are talking or listening to music or watching a video because your attention is usually on the conversation or the video.

God has given us His Word, the Bible, to be able to seek and to know Him and His ways. Leaving it on a shelf or under some other books doesn’t help us to know Him at all. Open your Bible if you have one. Get one if you don’t. Read it and learn about our loving God. While it is true that He is a vengeful God and a jealous God, He is also loving and compassionate. He sent His own Son, Jesus, to die for us…in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. We may not understand His ways at first, but if you read the Bible and ask Him to reveal Himself to you, you will begin to understand.

God loves each of us but He sees and knows every thought and every deed that we do before we finally decide to believe in Him for our salvation. Once we have asked for Jesus to come in and cleanse our hearts, those previous sins in our life are wiped away and God doesn’t dwell on them ever again. We do, but they have been removed as far as the East is from the West. Give Jesus a chance in your life, be silent while you seek Him in the Bible, and pray for Him to reveal His will for your life. Listen to His wisdom and you will find it.

God’s will for you is only found when you read His Word and learn more about Him because His will for each of us is found in it.

An upright man who worships even in the bad times


So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord , and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. Job 2:7‭-‬10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.2.7-10.KJV