Category: Believe in the One Who saves

Do you seek God’s counsel?


Many of us pray and ask for God’s help in our lives, but are you listening for His counsel? Or are you just giving Him a list of things that you want, and then ending the prayer with “in Jesus’ name, Amen”?

Prayer is needed in our world today and it is necessary for us to communicate with God about our lives and our needs (although He knows what you need). But our prayers shouldn’t be like a child’s list to Santa in Jesus’ name!

Seeking the counsel and the wisdom of God can and should be done through prayer but in order to hear God’s counsel you have to be willing to do something…listen! You don’t just spout off a prayer and “thank you, Lord, in Jesus’ name, Amen” and then go about your business as if you haven’t engaged God in your day!!

When God called Gideon he gave him a command but He also gave him the ability to perform that which He was calling him to do. Read it here:

The Call of Gideon

11 Then the Angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon and said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

13 “Pardon me, Sir,” Gideon replied, “but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonders about which our fathers told us, saying, ‘Has, not the LORD brought us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

14 The LORDa turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Am I not sending you?”  Judges 6: 11-14

Gideon tested the Lord after this to be sure he was hearing Him right, but the point of this passage is that Gideon listened and obeyed God. It is likely that many in Israel had been praying for deliverance from the Midianites, but God chose someone who would do what He told him and how He told him to do it. God knew that Gideon would listen and obey and that is what is needed in the church today!

Our churches do some great things by shepherding the people who have been called by God to be the church. Teaching them from God’s Word and teaching the next generation about God and what His Word says. But…how many of the churches in the world today are stepping out in faith and walking with God in these things? Are the churches today more interested in how many people show up for services on Sundays or do they go out at all into the community and take the love of Jesus with them to those who need to hear it?

Those in the church may say, “Well, that’s the preacher’s job.”, today most preachers are busy trying to take care of their own families. Paying bills, working a second job just to make the ends come close during the month, that is what most pastors are doing. Some have the time but aren’t able to get out and make house calls on those in the community.

What would Jesus do?

If I asked that question today, most would say that He is God so He can do anything for anyone. Well, didn’t He tell us through His disciples to go and tell others about the gospel and take it to all generations and to all the world? Are we doing that or do we eat lunch and go home (or go home and eat lunch) and think that’s for someone else to do? Do you leave church feeling inspired to do something for Jesus and then the fire goes out on the way home?

Seek Him in His Word today, pray about what you read and listen for His voice in what you read and when you pray. Actively reading God’s Word with prayer is the best way to hear from Him that I know. Then, if He tells your heart to do something…go out and do it! God told Gideon to save Israel and he did, if He tells you to go and tell someone in your family about Him then do it!

The futility of man’s understanding


For those of you who have been to college, have you ever noticed just how much you find out that you don’t know? Even with degrees in the clinical sciences and chemistry, I find that the world around us still fascinates me by showing me things that never made it into those lecture halls or the books I studied. We are ignorant in comparison to the knowledge of the cosmos or any branch of study that you wish to pursue. When I was a teenager I read every astronomy book and magazine I could get my hands on.

I never owned a real telescope during my life of searching the meaning in the stars. I had one of those cheap dollar store type “telescopes” which you couldn’t get to focus on anything, so when I went to college I took astronomy as an elective. I didn’t know I was going to get a chance to look through some 12-inch and 14-inch telescopes and boy did that make me go “Wow!”

Yet, even with the Hubble telescope today and all of the information on the Internet, we still don’t know much about how we became who we are. We cannot pinpoint anything which leads us to a point where we can say that our knowledge bank is full. The point is that we are living in a futile existence. We only have a small amount of time in this life where we can pursue knowledge and truly learn things about the world around us. Yes, we live seventy or eighty years, but how many years of that span are truly productive and learning years?

We still cannot understand the workings of painkillers or how our genes code for eye color or personality. We cannot tell anyone how to speak to whales or dolphins and our best computers cannot make sense of the multitude of frequencies contained in the squeaks and clicks of the voice of a dolphin. We know how cells divide to make more of themselves but we don’t know when a “clump of cells” becomes a human being. (Hint: it happens even before the heart begins its first thump).

God has placed within us the knowledge of the infinite and our need for HIm in our lives but we run around for years trying to fill that place with lots of other things besides Him. God knows us from the moment we are in the womb because He placed us there. He gives us the knowledge for our life and the ability to learn more if we need to, but for our understanding of everything that we learn…it takes patience and seeking His knowledge first.

Why do I say that we need to know Him first? Because He is the Creator of it all. Who better to teach you about cells and biology and astronomy and chemistry than the One who made all of the life around you? He placed the stars in their courses. He placed the whales and the other life in the sea in their specific places. He created mankind to be an eternal being and at least part of us does live into eternity.

All of the knowledge that we can learn is but a small drop compared to His knowledge of everything. Even if you had five Ph.D.’s in many different disciplines, your knowledge would only be a small fraction of God’s. This is why the scientists in the years prior to the 19th century learned about their studies in order to prove His awesome glory!

Seek Him out during your few decades here on Earth so that you can spend eternity with Him doing things that you never thought possible.

God says

Do you have eternity in mind?


Most of us live our lives day to day and really don’t think about eternity until we are at a funeral or at someone’s bedside who knows they don’t have long in this world. But why don’t we? I mean, if you are a Christian or a Muslim or a Jewish person who is devout in their chosen religion, eternity is present in your religion! So why don’t we live our lives with at least some idea of entering into eternity?

I think it has to do with the fact that most of us don’t like to pack. We don’t really like to get ready to go anywhere, even if we like to travel. Getting ready for a trip is tedious and boring and not really any fun at all but in order to enjoy your trip it needs to be done. Getting ready for eternity doesn’t involve packing or travel accommodations or tickets, but it does involve making sure that you have your faith bound up in Jesus and your belief in Him as your Savior needs to be solid!

No amount of good living or moral living or works or money will buy you a ticket to Heaven. Belief in Jesus as your Savior and walking with Him every day expecting His return and looking for Him in all of your life’s endeavors will give you expectant hope in Him! Living your life as a Christian is about the most denied faith in the world today because there are so many “false prophets” stating that there are many ways to get to Heaven.

This is blatantly FALSE!! Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.”

I know this sounds elitist and narrow but the way to eternal life is a path, not a highway and it only goes through Jesus Christ. Seek Him in your worship, learn about Him as your Savior and ask Him to be your Savior so that your travel into eternity will be a smooth trip.

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Believe in the Person of Jesus Who did sacrifice everything for each of you.

Life is painful sometimes


We live and work in a world of hurts and pain. Some of it is from painful memories and some of it comes from family members who never talk to each other. Many times the pain comes from the realization that our world is getting worse instead of better. Why is this happening? That is easy, God said that it would get this way before He comes back.

Everything that is happening in the world, good and bad, is happening because of God’s sovereign rule over everything. It isn’t something that is surprising or unexpected, at least it isn’t in God’s sight. He knew that the earthquake which happened was going to happen. He knew about the hurricanes and the mudslides and all of the fires which have ravaged the western U.S. I know that many people are going to say “If God is so loving and good, then why did all those people die in those disasters?”.

I don’t know. God allows some bad things to happen, but why they happen is not given to mankind to know or understand. He knows that some good will come from the bad things, but only He can see that. We aren’t gifted with the understanding of those things which we see as bad or terrible from our perspective. I am sure that God has prevented many bad things from happening in your life and mine and we likely didn’t even know about it.

God looks at us even before we accept Jesus as our Savior, even before we were ever born, and He can see the person that we can be as a saved and sanctified child of His. He knows exactly what we can do and what we will accomplish for Him long before we belong to Jesus! He doesn’t discount us as a “lost cause” nor does He look at us as someone who isn’t useful to Him. Every person on Earth is useful to Him IF they give their hearts to Jesus and continue to mature in their faith.

What does that mean? It means that becoming a Christian is a process. One which takes some time. Yes, you accept Jesus in a moment but that is not the end of it. It takes a walk…a daily walk with Him in faith and prayer and learning more from His Word than you ever thought was contained in the Bible!

Consider it this way, a potter throws a lump of clay on a wheel and takes his fingers and puts a dent in the top. But it isn’t a bowl or a cup yet. It takes more molding and more pressure and more molding until it finally begins to take the shape which the potter knew that it could be. That is the same process which God takes us through after we have accepted Jesus as our Savior.

Some hardship and some pain draw us closer to Him, learning more about Him, cultivating our prayer life and our daily time with Him until we finally begin to take the shape which God knew we could be. The process is never really over until we die and are brought into Heaven. That is our graduation in a way because this life is just the preparation for our eternal life of service with Him and for Him.

Be changed by Him


When we come to church and worship Him we are supposed to be changed in our heart.

“Why? I like my life the way it is!” Ok, so why do you have trouble at home or at work or at school? Are you more concerned about what you have or how you feel or how others are treating you than you are about those who are hurting around you? I realize that our culture today tells us that we are important and that our lives matter and that our personal ideas about the truth are ours and nobody should tell us any different. But…you know what that kind of thinking does to you and your relationships and to your life?

It gives us an “I” problem. It causes us to think more about our ideas and our things our lives. It causes us to concentrate more on what is good for me.

When you feel the Holy Spirit of God touching your life and your heart, He opens it up to the possibilities of being a part of a much bigger crowd. One that is part of God’s family and a crowd which is made up of people who are just like you. Some of them may be darker in skin tone or have a funny sounding name, but God has touched each of them and changed their heart so that we are part of His family. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how much your car or truck cost or any of that material life which is so valued in the world today.

God LOVES you! If you have felt or maybe you are feeling His touch in your heart today, don’t turn away from Him. Turn your eyes toward Jesus and ask Him to come into your life and change your life into a life which will make a HUGE difference in the world around you. He can do that and He will do it because He knows that you are the only person who can reach that man or woman down the road. You are the only one who can explain God’s plan of salvation to them or maybe to someone you work with.

Your life can be so different from the life that others lead with their “I” problems and their “me and mine” problems. Their life is centered on themselves and on what they can get or have. The problem with doing this is that your circle of friends doesn’t get very big when you live this way. Nobody wants to be around a selfish person who only thinks of themselves!

We are encouraged to be outgoing even when we don’t feel like it. When Jesus is in your heart and is a part of your daily life, you are open to the world and not just in a box or a cage by yourself. Its no fun living like that even when you have convinced yourself that you like it that way!

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of the things which you need will be provided in your life. Notice that this promise speaks of your needs not your desires or your wants. God will provide for you by the riches of Jesus Christ in Heaven, not of those things which are luxuries in this world, but your needs.

Be changed in His image. We are made in the image of God, but since the fall in the Garden, mankind has had a spirit of rebellion in their hearts from birth. Give your heart to Jesus and follow Him in all of your ways, conforming to the likeness of Jesus so that your ways and your life will be a reflection of Him rather than your desires and your ideas.conformed-transformed

Freedom from depravity


The Christian faith gives believers the grace they don’t deserve but so desperately need. The depravity of humankind is obvious, especially today. Our faith grants us , as believer’s, a direct relationship with God, whom we can approach with freedom. Once you understand the value of your salvation you understand how tightly the relationship needs to be held onto. Many people today think that Christianity deprives you of fun and having a life but that is not true.

God’s rules, the Ten Commandments, are guidelines for us to live by and after you have given your heart to Jesus and have begun following Him in your life they are easy to follow. Why? Because your relationship with Jesus is more important to you than your old life and your old ways. This is why believers need to treat their salvation as their most valuable asset.

I know the word “depravity” sounds offensive but think about all of the sex trafficking and child slaves that are kidnapped for perverts around the world. If that isn’t depravity I don’t know what is! Our world is under the control and rule of Satan and his agents so much of our world is part of his world. Granted, God allows him to do this and He is in control by limiting what he can do and how far he can go but it is still our adversary that is in charge on Earth.

God has always been in control of him and has placed limits on what he can do and what is not allowed by God. We see some of these things as either God is not in control or He is a mean and hateful God. He is nothing like that at all! If God were not in control I imagine that Satan and his cohorts would’ve made sure that mankind would likely wipe himself from the Earth long before now.

We should seek out God and learn about Him and His love for us, because there is no other way you can learn of Him if you don’t seek Him for yourself. God provided a way for your sins to be wiped clean so that you could interact with Him and be in Heaven one day as a redeemed child of God.

Remember, God has always had a plan for each of us and yet we try to live as if He doesn’t exist at all. He hung the stars in space and placed all of them in their places so that their light shines on us and we behold His glory by His creation. I ask that you give your life to Him while there is still time to do so. Seek Him out for your salvation, learn about Him by studying His Word and listening to Bible teaching and preaching. Because there is no better way to know someone than to read their letters.

What is the message?


This could be a long message.

The Bible is the message of salvation from the beginning to the end! The seed of the woman was promised to crush the head of the serpent in Genesis. The Rock which gave Life-giving water to the Israelites in the desert was a type of Christ. The Pillar of cloud by day and the Pillar of fire by night was God watching over His people. Moses was a type of Christ as well since he prophesied and said that God would raise up a Prophet like him in time to redeem His people. The Passover lamb was a type and representation of Christ.

I could go on with the types and representation of a Redeemer in each book of the Bible, but the Message of the Bible is that we can’t save ourselves! We are flawed in our religion and in our own righteousness because we try to make “god” in our image and make “our god” into one who allows us more freedom than we could get from God Himself. God gave us freedom in all forms especially with regard to our choices. We can choose to follow Him or not. There is no pattern or way for us to gain His grace or His forgiveness other than through Jesus and our belief in Him.

Jesus (Yeshua) came and paid the price for our sins so that we would not have to, but you only get to enjoy the benefits of being a Christian if you believe in Him. John’s gospel says it best and you already know the verse, John 3:16-18:

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

It is your heartfelt belief in Jesus as the Son of God and as your Savior which grants you forgiveness for your sins and entrance into eternity. God is not going to throw you into hell because of your sins, at least that won’t be the only reason. It will be your lack of belief in Jesus as your Savior which condemns you. Yet, today, many do not want to hear about Jesus and salvation through Him. Why?

Because they would have to admit that the Bible must be true in order to believe in Him and most are not willing to believe in the absolute Truth found in God’s Word. Many people, in fact, most people in the world want to create their own version of the truth which fits their ideas and not the ones found in the Bible. Why do they feel this way about God’s Word? Because if they admit that any part of it is true then they have to accept that ALL of it is true as well.

God’s Word is the Truth and, like it or not, there is only one Truth found there: Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and He is the only way to Heaven. Belief in Him and following Him for the rest of your life is the only way to enter into eternity with Him.

Bridge2Salvation

 

Little things


How many times do little things get in the way of relationships? Sometimes the things which get in the way are so small until you barely know what they were. But they still make a dent in other people’s feelings. Sometimes the dent is bigger than you think and sometimes the damage takes a real toll on the relationship. Occasionally, the damage causes a rift or a split in the relationship.

Then what do you do?

You repent, say “I’m sorry” for the fortieth time, and move on. Each day…every day we go through times which will test our patience and our faith in God sometimes. But each day we must determine for ourselves to walk with God that day, then do it again tomorrow, and again the next day. This is what Jesus meant about taking up our cross each day and following Him.

The cross you have to bear is sometimes a difficult one. It could be a disease or a financial hardship or maybe an ailing parent or child or it could be depression or any number of other things which we all face at some point. Why bring this up if these are little things in God’s eyes but in our life they can be pretty big at times?

Because each of us has these “problems”, regardless of the size of them or the weight that they carry. Nobody is immune to the trials of life regardless of what they may be! Each of us has to live through them but we should remember that we don’t live through them alone. God is always beside us and ready to help us with strength for our spirit and for our struggles.

Jesus said, “I will be with you, until the end of the age“; I know, its a paraphrase of His words, but He meant what He said. God doesn’t mince words and He doesn’t lie about anything. When He said this He meant it! The “age” He was speaking of is the one we are in now, the church age, and if you have been paying attention to any news you will know that people are not paying much attention to the church or the message which we preach.

Your sin debt has been paid! Everyone’s sin debt has been paid, but most don’t want to believe that it has been nor do they want to believe in the One Who paid it for them. God loves each person individually and deeply! He is not a vengful God nor is He an angry God, He is a loving God Who wants to know you better.

Give Him a chance to know you and for you to get to know Him. I promise, you won’t regret it.

God’s way


Is there any other way? Yes, you can choose to follow your own path or the one which the world places in front of you. Sometimes we will find a path which gives us all of the goodies that the world values but it still leaves us empty. No matter which way we turn in the world, trying to find the path to real and lasting happiness, that path never intersects with the one we are on. We may find some happiness with our job or our family for a time, as long as we don’t use them as our “god” to make our way in this world.

The problem really comes full circle if we do deify some part of our career or our family because there is no lasting satisfaction in doing this. No amount of success in this world, financial or otherwise, can take the place of giving our lives to Jesus and repenting of making our lives a mess otherwise. There are no quick fixes and no amount of “good deeds” by giving lots of money or time to a worthy cause will ever save your soul. Any “good” thing done outside of God’s love and without Jesus as our motivation is useless in eternity.

The only eternity which we will see if we try to do it our way and not God’s way is the absence of God in hell for eternity. I know this sounds totally against the world’s way of looking at our good deeds but God’s way of doing things doesn’t match up with the way the world looks at it. God’s way of doing things goes completely against our logic sometimes.

Consider when God called Gideon to fight an army with a group of soldiers that only numbered about 300.

Here is the text of the choosing of Gideon’s army:

Gideon’s Army of Three Hundred

1Early in the morning Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the men with him camped beside the spring of Harod. And the camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh.

2The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many people for Me to deliver Midian into their hands, lest Israel glorify themselves over Me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’ 3Now, therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people: ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’”

So twenty-two thousand of them turned back, but ten thousand remained.

4Then the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many people. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go. But if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

5So Gideon brought the people down to the water, and the LORD said to him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel to drink.” 6And the number of those who lapped the water with their hands to their mouths was three hundred men; all the others knelt to drink.

7Then the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped the water I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hands. But all the others are to go home.”

With all of the men with him, Gideon and Israel would look at the victory as their victory and not the Lord’s victory. This is why God had him to limit his army so that the glory of the battle would be given to the Lord.

God can use you as you are to accomplish much in His Kingdom and for His glory. You don’t need a seminary degree or a fantastic car or an expensive suit! John the Baptist preached in a coat of woven camel’s hair and he was the forerunner of our Lord Jesus!

Did you know?


God doesn’t care what the color of your skin is.

Jesus came to bring salvation to ALL people.

The only real difference between “races” are the parts of our DNA which code for skin color, hair texture, and morphological features. Our differences are just a tiny fraction of our DNA and yet those differences are part of the cause of most of our conflicts in the world, outside religious differences.

genetic-variationOur “racial differences” come about by a very small fraction of our DNA. By very small I mean 0.1%. We are all related and that takes us back to the Garden. Our original parents were dark-skinned like anyone from the Middle East is, yet over the thousands of years since the Garden our skin tones have changed to accommodate our location in the world.

So, why exactly do we have so many problems which are caused by skin color and other superficial features? Is it because of pride or arrogance? At times, I think it is because we have trouble just dealing with our differences regardless of how minor they may be. Then we look at all of the cultural differences that we have and those do outnumber our racial differences.

Culturally, we are different from each other in so many different ways until it is hard to understand how we do get along as well as we do! Will it be possible to get past these differences in the future? Not without the help and influence of Jesus as our King! He will rule the world for one thousand years and our differences will go away for that time. When we all enter into eternity none of our differences will matter at all because we will be serving God in all things and in all ways.

The reason that life is so mixed up today is that of the time in which we are living. We are at the point just before the Tribulation and just ahead of the time when the church will be taken up into Heaven. That is why there are so many problems and natural disasters and other things like the changes in the climate which are happening. The natural world is waiting for God to change it back to the way it was in the Garden so long ago. Jesus said that there would be “birth pains before the end of the age“.

Many other signs will be happening between now and the time that the leader who will make peace treaties in the Middle East for Israel. Be watchful and seek God’s wisdom in these times because He knows what is happening and why, so follow Jesus before the end comes.