Category: Believe in the One Who saves

Love one another…


God told us this. Jesus commanded it. But…do we do it? Even as Christians or even a society which claims to be “Christian” in its principles, no we do not! If we did there wouldn’t be a legal way to kill your baby. If we did there would be fewer murders and rapes and other kinds of crimes against human decency and against God’s law which most of our laws were based on, to begin with. So, what happened to America?

The same thing which has happened to every other country, Christian or not. We want to do things our way, not God’s way. Even though history has shown that doing or living life by our ways and our wisdom has usually ended up badly. If you have ever read the book of Genesis, humanity doesn’t get too far before the inclination of their hearts was evil continually! This was only six chapters in from the beginning! After the Fall in the Garden, mankind didn’t waste much time before they had forgotten God almost entirely.

God’s laws are based on love. His love toward us and His command for us to love one another. But when we demand our own way and our own ideas about life and freedom to do what we want without His laws interfering, we are walking down a very slippery slope. Yes, it is permissible and easy to live with because when we are following our own ideas of “right” and not God’s law of Right and Wrong we are missing the Truth which comes from God.

In our world today people are willing to ignore God’s Word because they don’t believe it is the Truth. Many don’t believe that it is God’s Word, to begin with. Some even pick some parts of it to believe and then choose not to believe other parts which they don’t agree with! God’s Word is True from the beginning to the end and either all of it is the Truth or none of it is! So, picking some parts to believe and some which you don’t believe is not really an option!

That would be similar to believing that the Sun is going to come up tomorrow but not the next day or that gravity works for some people but not everyone. You can choose to believe or not believe in physical laws if you wish, but God put those in place for a reason. They don’t go away just because you don’t like them or you don’t want them to be true on a certain day or time. The Truth of His Word is the same. It is either true and absolute in its meaning all of the time or it isn’t God’s Word at all!

His Love for us is the same. It never is less than it was yesterday and it is never more for one person over another. God chooses those whom He will use and those that He won’t, it doesn’t mean that He loves one over the other. Yes, there is a verse which says “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated” but that doesn’t mean human hatred. God loved Esau too, just not in the same way and it was because He knew that Jacob would become the nation of Israel.

Read God’s Word and learn about Him because He already knows all about you and your capabilities and your usefulness for His Kingdom!

The Word


Have you heard that Jesus was the Living Word made flesh? Considering that He was with the Father in the beginning and it was the Word of God which brought everything into existence, I would believe it! John’s gospel tells us that He was with God and the Word was God and He was manifested with us as a man, the only begotten of the Father.

He is our Savior and Lord and He is our Creator too. There are many people who don’t want to believe in Him or the grace and salvation that He brings to us and all we have to do to receive it is believe in Him for our salvation. Then, to grow in His Spirit, we should choose to follow Him, reading His Word and studying it to know Him better and to be known by Him. This site is my only way of reaching out to the world and I pray that anyone who may be searching will seek Jesus out as their Savior and believe!

God loves us and He has loved us since the very beginning. That is why the Seed of the woman was promised so many years ago. Jesus came as the Son of God through His love for us so that we could regain our place in His house and His garden one day. Living your life as if the Word of God is null and void only makes your eternity an endless point of pain and suffering. Not because of your sins but because of the simple decision which could’ve saved you from that place!

God never intended for humanity to go to that place of torment, at least that is what I believe. But by deciding to do things your way and not His way, you are aligning yourself with Satan and his rebels. Eternity in heaven is only a decision away and I encourage you to make that decision soon. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow let alone next week. Make sure of your eternal destination soon because you may not get another chance.

and three nails. He did this for you, don’t turn away from Him.

Believe…


As it is written in God’s Word, “all you have to do is believe“. There are numerous instances of this specific word or one which has the word “believe” in it such as “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness“. Why do I bring this word up again on this site? Because it is needed and necessary for all who are looking for and seeking Jesus to believe in Him, not that He existed but believe in Him for salvation!

Even the demons and Satan know about Jesus and that He is the Son of God. But knowing about Him and believing that He existed doesn’t bring salvation. Consider this: if someone told you that you had been given one million dollars and that it was available to you, would you believe them just by their word or would you have to see it and know that it was there? Take that a bit further. You know it is there and it is yours but you never claim it, is it doing you any good at all? Not even a little bit.

That is the same place that many people today are in concerning their salvation. They have heard a sermon telling them that it is available and that it is free to claim. All they have to do is believe that it is theirs and claim it by asking Jesus for their forgiveness and that He should come into their lives and make them whole. The problem is that even though many know that salvation is available to them just as easy as the million dollars in the previous paragraph, given a choice they would rather have the money.

Why?

Because, in the world that we live in, money is immediate and useful. Salvation only means something to you if you are looking toward eternity rather than just looking at tomorrow. The problem with this type of thinking is just like the prodigal son, once the money is gone you are worse off than you were before. Money is like your life. It is a puff of smoke and it is gone in an instant of time but salvation takes you to an eternal home where life never ends and it only gets better.

Consider that and seek out the One Who can provide you with salvation and an eternal home too.

God is still in control!


The sun is still shining and the moon is still in its orbit. If they had actually been around 4.5 billion years, the moon would be a bit farther away from us than it is. There has been some research into the stars in our galaxy and the number of supernovas which have been counted and it doesn’t add up to the number which would be present if the amount of time suggested by the Big Bang is true and correct.

The universe was designed by God to support life and God is Life. Regardless of how out of control your life may feel at times, our Creator is still watching over you. Specifically, if you are a Christian and believe in Him for your salvation. Now, I am not saying that God doesn’t care about His creation outside of those who are Christians because He does. But, He knows which person will give their life to Jesus and which ones will not. That doesn’t mean that He chooses which people will be saved and which ones won’t but it does show that God knows your heart and which choice you will make.

There is a big difference between knowing which direction you will take and forcing you to take it because God will not force you to make one decision over another. Consider that the decision to follow Jesus is one based on faith and on the grace that you realize you have been given. Each of us who have given their hearts and their lives to Jesus knows the love which God has poured into their lives because of the gift of salvation. In the Bible, you can read about the depth of God’s love toward us and know that returning that love is not enforceable, it is made by decision of those to whom it has been given.

Giving love back to the Author of Love only makes it better and makes us feel His love for us even more. Sometimes it is a small gesture of love toward someone you may not know well. Sometimes it is a prayer or a hug to a friend who is going through a hard time. Being the hands and feet of Jesus in a world that is truly DESPERATE for the Love which He embodies is the kind of mission and ministry which all of us should try to be a part of. Sometimes it is only through prayer that we can make a difference or even through a post like this one which may bring hope to someone who feels that they don’t have any.

Each person who is a Christian knows someone who isn’t or maybe they have been away from the church for a long time. Invite them to church or to a Bible study, have coffee or hot chocolate ready to warm them up on a cold night. Because it is the little things that most people notice about us who follow Jesus, not the big show of the service or how beautiful the sanctuary is. Jesus didn’t preach in a beautiful church. Most of the time it was in a field or even at the beach and He was sitting on a boat. It was the love which He showed toward those who had little or none in their lives that got the most attention.

Are you His?


I ask this type of question because people, in general, don’t believe in God or the prophecies in the Bible. While it is true that there are many in the world who claim to believe in God, the “God” which they believe in is just a generalized idea of the real God and Creator of the universe. Even Satan knows Who God is because it was God Who created him! My question is in reference to your salvation or lack of it. Are you His and do you truly know Him?

The most important part of this is does He know you? Your eternity depends on the answer to that question. Granted, your soul is eternal and if you do not choose to serve Jesus and accept Him as your Savior, you will be in eternity one day but your eternity will be in punishment. Why? Because you have refused the offer of grace and mercy when it was offered to you.

I truly pray that more of you who read this will seek Jesus as your Savior because that is the ministry which I was called to. I was called almost ten years ago to be a voice telling others about our Lord and Savior, hoping that the Holy Spirit would draw at least some of you to Him. This is not a light nor easy ministry because there are so many who truly need salvation. I am not able to go to those places which this medium can reach, but I do pray that He will reach you.

God does love each of us but it’s up to us to love Him enough to ask Him into our lives and our hearts. He doesn’t force us in any way to come to Him because love and devotion cannot be forced, they must be given willingly and humbly by those who know that they don’t deserve the grace that they have been offered. The most well-known verse from God’s Word says it all:

John 3:16

Amen!

God said…


At the beginning of Creation, God spoke almost everything into existence. I say “almost everything” because when God created mankind, He did so with His hands. He didn’t just speak mankind into existence. He said “Let Us make mankind in our image”; the man was created on the sixth day and God said that everything was very good. In chapter two God rested on the seventh day after all of His work in creating everything. The Lord caused a mist to water the ground and He formed mankind from the ground and breathed into him and gave him Life. Then God placed him into the Garden to keep it, with the exception of one tree the man could eat of any tree in the Garden.

God created a helper for Adam which he named Woman because she was taken from man. God used a rib to create Woman and yet we don’t value women as much as we should, even today. But…God does! There are many others in the world who are not valued today, not just women. Unborn children are not seen as much more than a group of cells rather than the miracle that they are whether they are wanted by their mother or not. People who believe in a different Savior are looked down upon because they have faith in their Savior rather than in someone else’s idea of a savior.

In many ways, our world chooses to ignore what “God says” and choose to follow their own ideas and ways. Many people seem to be unwilling to acknowledge God at all, whether by His Word or by the Truth contained in it. Yet, the laws by which most of our laws are based on actually come from the Bible! Yes, the words are arranged differently or they may phrase the law as being different but the laws which God gave to Moses are still the basis for most of mankind’s own laws regardless of how you phrase those laws.

When God says something in His Word, whether it is a commandment or a precept, it still carries His Wisdom and His intent with it. It doesn’t matter whether we like the law or the precept or not. Truth and laws are not things which are open to interpretation or opinion. A law is a law and agreeing with it or not doesn’t change it. Truth is the truth whether you want it to be so or not, especially when it is a Truth from God’s Word! God said it and that settles it.

Whether you believe in His Word or have a different opinion of His Word doesn’t change His Word or the effect of it in your life or in the lives of everyone around you. Just as your idea or belief about gravity does nothing to change it, God’s Word is immutable whether we like what it says or not.

Walking with Jesus


Each of us who answer His call has to learn how to do this. The Lord does give us an idea of how to do it, but it’s up to us to figure it out. It does take reading His Word and learning from it and this is a lifetime process. Some people think that going to church gives them the key to heaven or maybe reading the Bible gives them a special place in heaven. Those actions have no real bearing on your eternity although they do help you to be the person that you are supposed to be in Jesus Christ those actions do NOT save you!

Faith in Jesus and believing in His atonement for your life, your sins and all of the words and things which you have done or said in this life. The Holy Spirit comes to live in your heart and you become a new creation from that moment on. We become more like Him by turning away from our sinful lives and truly following Him daily. God called you to be His and it is His call on your life which allows you to be saved because He gives you the faith and the grace to become His child…but only if you answer that call by accepting it and moving toward Him and away from your old life.

But…what if I don’t want to give up my old life?

Then it is likely that you won’t accept Jesus’ call on your life! It is a sad position to be in from an eternal standpoint. If you have felt His touch in your heart and you know that you are a sinner and you need Jesus as your Savior, yet you love your sins and your “regular” life more than you feel the need of salvation…it is very possible that you will just walk away from Him. What would’ve happened to the church if the disciples had turn away from Jesus? There wouldn’t be a church today.

Could Jesus have found other disciples? Of course, He could have but it would’ve been very different from the ministry which He had with the original disciples. People are very different and shepherds or other disciples would have learned from Him in different ways from the 12 which He chose. Even His betrayer would’ve been different, but God knew which men would follow Him and the ones who did were the disciples which were needed.

God knows our hearts and our usefulness to Him, not because He forces us to be His disciples because gratitude and love cannot be forced in any way! We serve God because He loves us and because we love Him in return for everything that Jesus did for us. But, our life with Jesus brings with it a responsibility, and that responsibility is to grow in our faith and our spiritual strength as we go through this life with Him.

Reading the Bible and praying for the Spirit to teach us the meaning of it as we read is part of our life and our walk with Him. It is not really an option and it gives us the ability to resist the temptations and the “fiery darts” which are sent our way as we live in service to Him. If you don’t grow and learn from Him in your daily walk with Him and in reading His Word, then you will be overcome at some point when temptation or trials come your way.

Amen

Death…


This is one of the least prepared-for parts of our lives. Death is one thing which nobody can escape yet everyone seems intent on putting it off as long as possible. Even though it happens to be the doorway to eternity, nobody is willing to step through it nor are they ever truly ready for it. But in today’s culture, it seems that many people are fascinated by it except that they want to choose how they die. This is one of those choices that most of us really don’t have the will or the ability to choose how we die.

So, what should we do or is there even something which we can do about this? Can we live a life of purpose and meaning and then, when we come to the end of our life, have a “good death”? It is a question which is perplexing and troubling at the same time. How do you have a “good death”? It depends upon your life and the quality of it, I think. A Christian will look at death as a doorway to eternity, regardless of how the person dies. Others will look at it from their perspective of religion or belief or the lack of belief which the person had.

If it is an unexpected death we look back at the life of the one who died. If it is the death of a loved one who died of cancer, then hopefully it was not a lingering death and one which was mostly free of pain. Hopefully, it will be a death which the person who is dying will choose not to prolong the process nor to hasten it by the use of drugs or other means.

Life is given to us by our Lord and our God and we should cherish it but when the end of our life comes around, regardless of how that may happen, we should accept it and help those of our family to accept it as well. Those who are surviving us will grieve and they will feel the loss of our life but we should try to help them to do so if we can. Remember, death is a part of life it just happens to be at the end of it, hopefully.

So, why am I writing about this today? Because, at any given time in the world, there are many who are experiencing the death of a loved one. It happens much more than we realize because the media tries to hide this fact from most of us unless it happens to be someone famous and well known. All of us have to experience the loss of a spouse or a child or a parent at some time in our lives. Some of us don’t have to experience it until later in life and some experience it far too soon in our lives or in the life of the one who has died. Their death may come due to accident or disease and it could come too early in their life for them to truly have lived, which happens too often in our world today.

God is still there with them and beside you to comfort and to strengthen you in order to help you bear the loss and the pain. Some of us tend to blame Him for a loss which was too sudden or unexpected but He knew when their day was and how it would happen long before we find out about it. God loves us and He does care for each of us whether we die in our old age or if we die in the womb, of natural causes or for convenience. God loves you, so don’t look up and blame Him when a life comes to its end because He already knew the day and the hour. But many times He wasn’t the cause of their death unless it was His mercy toward them and you as well.

A successful life


Can you live a Christian life today and be a success? Yes, if you live according to the Word of God. We are to renounce our “old ways” of living and turn our eyes and our hearts toward Jesus and living His way. What does that mean exactly? Here is what God told Moses during the Exodus from Egypt beginning in Deuteronomy 10:12-13

12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, 13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

Some of you might say to me “But that’s in the Old Testament, we don’t have to follow those rules now!” Why not? God hasn’t changed. It is only our perception of Him which has changed. We try to make Him into a “politically correct” god but He is God and He doesn’t change…not for you or for me or anyone else in the world!

In order for us to be forgiven and live a Christian life we are supposed to live according to His Word and follow Him every day of our lives until our death or until He calls us to Himself. It is not negotiable and He doesn’t conform to our ideas of Who He is! Until we realize that there will be many standing in that day saying “Lord, did we not prophesy in your Name?“

Make sure of your relationship with Jesus now while there is a chance because if you are one who is saying those words in His Presence and He says, “depart from Me, for I never knew you.”; it will be too late to change anything about your salvation or lack of it at that time.

Make sure of what you believe and in Whom you believe.

Forgiveness


Did you know that we cannot do this by our own strength but only by the strength of Jesus Christ? God forgives us because of Jesus’ work on the cross and the blood that He shed for you. We are not supposed to keep or hold grudges against others, we as Christians are supposed to forgive even the most hurtful sins which have been done against us. Why? Because every sin which we have committed has been forgiven through the blood of Jesus, no matter how bad they are…yes even rapists and murderers are forgiven if they repent and give their hearts to Jesus.

Is forgiveness easy? NO! When someone has wronged you in any way it is very hard, almost impossible and it usually is impossible for us, in our own strength, to manage to truly forgive someone. We can forgive through our faith in Jesus and by His Strength only! There is no real forgiveness in a human heart until Jesus is in your heart. Because without Him in our heart, we will not forgive or forget.

God loves you and has provided a way for you to be forgiven and by the grace and faith given to you through Jesus Christ, you can forgive others. Refusal to forgive others who have hurt you, no matter what the pain might be, will cause your health to become worse. We must live humbly by the Word of God and live out the forgiveness in our lives toward others. This is not a suggestion but a command. If there is something between you and your brother, leave your offering and be reconciled with him.

Forgiveness is a thread which is throughout the Bible and it is a powerful one between God and mankind. It is part of our life when we have Jesus in our heart and we should practice it for the small things as well as those things which hurt us deeply. Think about the pain which Jesus went through to gain your forgiveness and mine! It was painful but He did it anyway.