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.

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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-variation Our “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.

Who is in control?

It’s not the United Nations. It is not the President or Congress.

The One Who is in control of all things is God Himself! He allows things and He causes things to happen on the Earth and in the universe around us. Nothing happens by fate or coincidence and nothing happens without God’s knowledge of it!

When Jesus showed up to be baptized, what happened? John the Baptist declared that He was the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. Yet, the teachers of the Law didn’t accept Him as such. They accused Him and mocked Him at every turn in His ministry. Yet, one of their members after His resurrection told them that if this belief and this movement was of God there was no way to stop it. Regardless of how many times His disciples were put in jail or flogged or told not to preach in His Name, His church was built on one immovable rock and it wasn’t Peter…it was faith!

God is in control and He is the One Who wants to bring salvation to you and to those all over the world. But many in the world don’t want to accept Jesus as their Savior, they have their own ideas about finding the pathway to Heaven or their afterlife. God loves each of us and yet He knows who will accept His Son and who, ultimately, will not accept Him.

Does He want everyone to be saved and come to Jesus as born-again believers? Yes, He does but God knows human hearts and He knows how people are with their beliefs and their fears and their pride. So, have you ever considered your life and the meaning of it, the purpose of it? Have you looked at God’s Word and read it and realized that your life can have much more meaning if you are a part of His plan for your life?

Life is much more than we truly think it is and it can be much more if you are a part of His Kingdom and live your life according to His Word. Many people think that we have to live by His rules but if your heart has been changed by His Spirit, it isn’t quite the same. When your heart is changed and He is living with you then you won’t want to be in the places where you were before. You won’t do the things which you did before you met Jesus and asked Him to come into your life.

The Holy Spirit makes a change in your heart and that change makes a difference in your life and the way that you live it. You live by God’s rules after this not because you have to or because He makes you do it but because you want to do it as a way of showing others that He has made a change in your life. Because Jesus cannot come into your life without a change taking place. You are a new creation! Your old, sinful ways and your old life have been replaced with His Spirit changing you from the inside out.

Don’t turn away from His call in your life or in your heart! God is calling you for a purpose and He knows that you are the only person who can take His message to the places where you go or to the people that you meet.

A change of heart…

In our Christian lives, we have to have a change of heart or we are not saved at all! When the Holy Spirit comes to you during a service or in your daily work by something which you have heard or read, He touches you and brings to you a message from God. He is telling you that you need Jesus!

“What if I don’t want Jesus?”

Well, that’s your choice but do you have a guarantee that you have X number of days or weeks or years ahead of you? Not one of us has such a guarantee! I may die before finishing this and you may die before you finish reading it if I do finish it! God knows your expiration date, thankfully we don’t!

God in His wisdom and His knowledge of our sinful ways touches us by a word or a thought or sometimes a sermon. Then it is our job, our choice to respond to that touch with, “Yes, Lord, I do need you to mold me and make me after Your will for my life”. Giving your heart to Jesus is not a one time deal nor is it just a “purchase” that you put away and forget about.

It is a beginning, THE beginning of a life-long journey with Jesus until He calls you home! Many of us do allow Him into our hearts and then get frustrated and angry when we can’t understand the Bible enough and we walk away from it and from Him. His disciples spent three years with Him and they didn’t understand most of His wisdom and His teachings until after He was resurrected!

He had to open their minds to the Truth of Who He was while they were learning from Him and to the Truth of Who He is today! If you think that understanding the New Testament is hard, His disciples didn’t have it at all! All that they had was the Old Testament in the scrolls of the Temple. What all of them had learned as children as the Books of Moses and the Prophets and the Writings. Many of us can’t understand much of what is in the Old Testament even though most of it points toward Jesus and His coming.

The only way that you can understand His teachings is to ask Him to show you what they mean during your study time and your prayer time with Him…daily as you walk with Him! As I said this is not like going to the store and picking up a book just one time, this is a daily journey through the Bible every day, learning and praying about what you read and thinking on it while you go about your day.

God has given us His Word and Wisdom for our life and examples of how we should live our life with Him on a daily basis. Your life and mine are a marathon and a journey with God as our Guide and our Teacher through His Word. Isn’t it wonderful that the Creator of all things is willing to teach us about Himself and how we can be His servants! He made this whole cosmos in order for our brains and our comprehension to go “Wow, what an awesome God we serve!”

Give your life to Him so that you can spend eternity gazing into His handiwork and His face and knowing that He loved you before He made any of it! Isn’t that wonderful?

One blessing at a time

Is this how you approach God or do you really want the flow to pour into your life? Many of us say that we want His blessings to flow into our lives but then we put conditions on the flow. We begin telling God exactly what we want and how we want it and when we want it, but have you ever noticed that God doesn’t answer prayers like that? God knows what you need and when you need it. Notice the difference in those two sentences.

In one sentence we are telling God what WE want and when and how we want it, but God knows what we need and He knows when to bless us with it and how much of a blessing to give because He knows exactly how we will use it and for what!

We multitask in our daily lives and we want Him to do His work in our lives the same way. For example, do you notice that many of us are trying to do many things every day and even though we think we are “multitasking” we actually get very little done? Unless…we concentrate on one thing at a time. Such as wash the towels, get them started in the washer, then move on to the dishes and hopefully finish them by the time the towels are done, then get the towels in the dryer, etc. Each task which we begin as just one task and them move on to the next gets done.

But when you are trying to call someone and get put on hold while you are washing the dishes and needing to wash the towels and the clothes, then very little will get done until at least one of those tasks is complete. Many of us try to do too much in our lives when God has told us exactly how to live and how to complete your tasks in this life easily. Focus on the Kingdom of God and His righteousness every day, learning from His Word and His Wisdom, then those other “things” will fall in place behind the most important One of all, Jesus.

Even when we know this, we tend to impose our ideas or our thoughts about how God is supposed to work in our lives. Don’t we? When we pray about a problem or about something which we want Him to do or accomplish in our lives, we impose our ideas and our wants on God and in the prayer that we are praying. God does not work on your specific ways of thinking because our ideas tend to limit God’s power and His miracle. God does answer prayer in His way and on His time and with His blessing for you even though His answer may not line up with your ideas about how He was supposed to do it!

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you”. Matthew 6:33

GodGaveusEverything Begin each day by reading His Word, maybe a chapter or so, then pray about what you have read and ask Him to help you incorporate His Wisdom into your day. Then your day will follow Him instead of the other way around. Always begin a decision or a day with Jesus, no matter what the day may bring and when God comes first in your day and in your life then your other priorities will be in their proper order.

How much more, little one?

Have you ever wondered how little we seem to be in the universe which God created? I know that our world is a normal sized planet but when you back out into the galaxy and into the cosmos as a whole, our entire solar system gets lost in a sea of motes. The stars which comprise our own galaxy take up the sky and cover our small corner of this arm of the galaxy until we are lost among the dust and the gas. So why are we, on this little ball of dust and mud, so important to God?

We are important to Him because He created us to be His. We aren’t puppets or toys to Him, we are people and we are special because we are created in His Image. No other being in the universe can claim that place. But, we hold that special place because He is God not out of any accomplishment or any righteousness of our own. All of us are bought with a price and that price was the blood of Jesus our Savior and Redeemer.

How much should we suffer or be in bondage to sin? We shouldn’t be in bondage to it at all because we have been bought with Jesus’ blood and our sin debt is paid, but if you haven’t given your life and your heart to Him then you are still a slave to sin! It doesn’t matter how long you have belonged to a church or denomination or if you are a deacon or serving in the Gideons, no amount of work which we do without Jesus as our Savior will help us or save us in any way!

How much should we live in this world of temptation and heartaches and put up with all of the things which happen every day? How much more, O Lord should we be here?

These feelings have been echoed throughout the ages since Jesus went to His Father. Is it selfish to wonder about these things? I don’t think so. The church is ready to leave as well, but the timing is God’s timing and not ours. It could happen in a few minutes or in a couple of years but only God knows that day and hour.

Jesus told His disciples not to worry about the timing of His return recorded in Matthew 24: 36-41: 36 No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,e but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. 39 And they were oblivious until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

That day will take the whole world by surprise, even those who are looking for His return. But, He will return for those who are expecting Him and looking for Him because they have faith that He will return. onebreathaway