Category: Believe in the One Who saves

What is Easter about?


Easter is about salvation. The Bible teaches that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Remember, usually more unbelievers attend church on Easter Sunday than any other day of the year. This may be the only opportunity to share with them the truth of salvation. Believing people need to hear the gospel as well as unbelieving people. Reminding ourselves of God’s glorious work in forgiving our sin and saving our souls ought to constantly challenge and change us to become more like Jesus.

Yes, there are times when we should understand and accept that the work which Jesus was sent to accomplish was finished on the cross and on the morning that Jesus came out of the tomb! It took both His death on the cross and His resurrection to complete the job that He was tasked with accomplishing and He did!

empty_tomb11How do we honor His Work today? Some churches do have Passion plays and preach on the work that Jesus accomplished. Others have egg hunts and things for the kids and maybe a sermon about His resurrection, then everyone goes home and does the same thing except without the sermon. Why don’t we live our lives as if He was going to show up in a couple of hours?

God’s timing and His blessing for us does come through Jesus our Savior Who took the punishment for us and everything that went along with it, especially the part about God having to turn away from His Son. He had to because Jesus took ALL of the sins of the world on Himself! From the sins in the Garden all the way until the end of everything on Earth, Jesus took all of our sins, yours and mine and every person born until that day when God says, “Enough”.

When will that be? It’s on His time and nobody knows the day or the hour when the time will be up for the whole world. Is it coming? Yes, it is coming, if you don’t believe it or you don’t want to believe it that is fine but…what if the Bible and everything in it is really true! Christians know it to be the Word of God and if God says something or promises something then it will come to pass..in God’s time.

Have you given your heart to Jesus? I mean truly and completely, not just saying words and getting wet in a baptism. What do I mean by completely giving your life to Jesus? For one thing, it is living your daily life with Him by your side because if you have given your heart to Him, then He is there in the Holy Spirit which is in your heart. You can’t run away from Him so you might as well learn to learn from Him every day.

Reading the Word of God on a daily basis. As John wrote that Jesus is the Word of God made in the flesh of man.

We are also told to wash our minds in the River of Life and to eat the Bread of Life, both of which are found in our Bible because they are the Word of God! The only way to grow in your life as a Christian is to consume God’s Word just as we do when we eat our meals. This is the only way to wash away the old sinful person that was present in your body prior to your salvation and replace your old self with the one which, in time, will look more and more like Jesus!

Being part of the church or even a member of the church doesn’t bring salvation. Celebrating the communion and drinking the wine and eating the crackers doesn’t save you. Attending church religiously for fifty or more years and reading your Bible doesn’t save you. Only your belief in Jesus and your faith in Him will save you and once that happens, you will give up your old ways and repent of them. When you read the Word and pray about what you have read so that the Spirit can reveal God’s Wisdom to you, you will become a little more like Jesus every day. But…this is a process! This is not something that you just put on like a coat and walk away with.

As with most anything else, it requires practice and faithful reading of God’s Word with prayer. Believing everything that God says because He inspired the writers to write the words which we have as our Bible. Prayerfully seeking Him in every daily endeavor and trusting that He will be with you in all of it and He will carry you through every trouble and trial that Satan tries to throw at you. Because once you are a child of God and a believer, you have a target on your heart and the devil and his troops will try to trip you up and make things hard so that you give up your path toward Jesus. One step at a time, one verse at a time, one day at a time will lead you to Jesus and to eternity.

What happened on the Sabbath?


None of the gospels elaborate on this so, other than the Jewish people celebrating the Sabbath of Passover and recounting the ordeal that their forefathers went through to leave Egypt, I don’t think much happened on that day.

The Roman soldiers were likely doing their patrols and those guarding the tomb were very bored and probably hungry…but they could not leave their post. The only place that you can find what may have been happening is in works of fiction today, and some of those are pretty riveting.

Remember that there are some parts of Scripture which say that He descended into Hades where the boundary between Paradise (Abraham’s bosom) is located. The scripture reference is in Ephesians and it is debated whether the Lord did this or if this was just part of Paul’s imagination. Whichever it is, one day we will know the Truth.

Jesus was at work fulfilling the prophecies about Himself during the time that He had between burial and the day of his resurrection. So, should we speculate about Jesus going into Abraham’s bosom and leading those from the Old Testament up to Heaven? I am not a story-teller, at least not of the caliber that it would take to make a coherent dialog about Jesus and His trip to the world where Moses and Abraham were.

Is it necessary for this kind of story to be told? No, but it was an entertaining read.

If you decide to read the book which is linked in the previous sentence, it is very entertaining. Brian Godawa does a great job of imagining the realm where the demons live here on Earth and how they were so giddy with joy when Jesus was on the cross. But, when He showed up in Paradise and then left it to resume His life on Earth and in Heaven it let all of them know exactly Who they were dealing with and they were scared.

That is not the only book which he wrote and I have read them all. They give you an imaginative look at the Scripture and some of the possibilities which may have occurred that weren’t written down. If they had been, the Bible or at least the Old Testament would’ve been a LOT bigger. Why do I bring this up now? Because of this holiday which the Christian churches will celebrate tomorrow is not about bunnies and chocolate and eggs and presents. It is about the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus.

Everything that Jesus did during His ministry was done so that we could have eternal life, the abundant life which God had purposed for humanity in the beginning. Jesus came to “fix” what had been broken by the fall from grace which happened in the Garden so long ago. The fall did break the relationship between God and mankind but it didn’t shatter it completely. But, it also caused many other parts of our universe to be broken, not just in the cosmos but here on Earth as well. As the writer says, “creation groans for everything to be set right again” (my paraphrase), but the point is that not only did Adam’s disobedience have an effect on man’s relationship to God but it also affected everything around him.

God cursed the ground and the animals of the world and everything lost some of its glory from God. It was no longer good from that point on and it will be remade at a later date. God loves you and all of His Creation, so please make sure of which side you are on before your life is over. The life that we live here is the only chance we get to “get right with God”. Once you are standing in front of God, your life will be the witness against you.

Good Friday


Why do we call it “good”? When you see the movie or read the Bible, it doesn’t seem to be good at all. I suppose the reason is that Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy about His crucifixion, which paid for our sins. It just doesn’t sound right, though.

Bridge2SalvationI know, it had to happen because it was part of God’s plan all along. It just doesn’t seem right calling it “Good Friday”, except for the blessings that we all have been the recipients of through His mercy and grace because of the crucifixion and the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus the Christ! If you are wondering why I put His name that way it is because I have heard it spoken and written as if that were His family name. It’s not.

Khristos is the Greek word for “anointed” or Messiah, Christ is the Anglican version of it. All of the prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus (Yeshua) on the cross and by His resurrection, and there is nothing which we can add to it to make our salvation any better or more pleasing to God. So, why do people try to add works or anything else to their lives after their acceptance of Jesus as their Savior? We are not asked to do anything to earn our salvation. The only command which Jesus gave to His disciples was to go and tell every person about the salvation available to them. Tell the gospel, the good news which Jesus brought to us by His ministry and His death and resurrection!

Salvation is not earned by anyone or by any amount of witnessing or going on a mission trip to a place you’ve never been to before. It cannot be earned because it has already been paid for by Christ! Its price was paid by His blood and His death and resurrection on the first day of the week! Nothing that we have can add to it! Performing the ritual of the “Lord’s Supper” is nice but even today many people take part in it which are not saved through the blood of Jesus! That is forbidden in the Bible, but nobody seems to enforce it.

God knows your heart, the preacher does not, so if you do take part in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and you aren’t saved by His blood and belief in Him then you will be required to account for this when standing before God. Why do I bring this up? Because there are so many people in America who claim to be Christians but their lives outside of the Sunday or Wednesday night service don’t reflect that there has been an actual change in their life!

We celebrate His resurrection this Sunday and it isn’t a joke because it happened. Just because it is falling on April 1st, which is Fools Day, doesn’t mean anything although some will try make it into something. Your eternal life is in the balance whether you believe in your heart and have confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior or if you haven’t actually given your heart to Him, just lip service. Why do I put it this way? Because there are far more people who claim to be Christians than there are in church on Sundays.

If all of the people who claim to be Christians were in church every Sunday, church construction would be a booming business…but it isn’t. There are at least a thousand churches closing their doors each month in America, and yet according to some polls taken our country is very much Christian. Some of those polls show at least seventy percent claim to be Christians. Look these statistics up, I feel confident that what I’ve heard on the news in the past few years will bear this up to scrutiny.

Claiming to know Jesus in this life is nice and cozy, but when you stand before Him at your judgment will He know you?

The storms of life


There are days that it seems are filled with anguish and pain and sometimes heartache too, but the storms in life are what Jesus helps us get through. Living in this world in its fallen state causes anxiety and fear yet, at times, wonder at the joys and the fate of those around us. Why do I mix this sentence like this? Because during your lifetime and mine, we do experience joy and sorrow, pain and fear and anxiety too. This is just part of our experience in this life and it won’t get any better until our King comes to rule this world.

Yes, storms cause a lot of damage at times. Tornado’s and hurricanes can devastate whole cities and the surrounding area for miles and they both cause a lot of property damage and loss of life too. Yet, storms should not be part of our daily existence. If you live with what could be described as a storm on a daily or weekly basis, if you are a Christian then you may be doing something RIGHT!

Why do I say this? Because those storms and the trouble which is part of your life could be caused by Satan and his spirits and demons. If you are doing something which is bringing glory to God and His Kingdom, then Satan could be bringing these “storms” into your life to buffet you and interfere with your faithful living! Don’t think that just because you are a Christian that Satan will leave you alone. Being a Christian who is trying to live their life according to the example set by Jesus puts a target on your back as surely as being a medic in the Army with a red cross on your arm made them targets of the enemy.

We live in a world where Satan has free reign for a little while longer and he knows that his time is growing shorter. Therefore, he is stepping up his temptations and his working in our minds and in the world by causing all sorts of evil to be done, some of which is in the news and some are not. As the scripture says, “Satan goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour“. So, we are to be sober-minded and steadfast in our living by the Word of God, picking up our burdens every day and seeking to accomplish the work that Jesus set before us.

Don’t be slack in doing the things which God sent His own Son to do because once we have asked Him to come into our hearts then His charge becomes ours as well. We are to go around doing as much as we can, just as He would if He were here in our shoes. That is why the church, the people who profess to know and be known by Him, is supposed to be His hands and His feet and to bring His message to all who will hear it.

God is bigger than all of the storms that this life can throw at us, whether it is from disease or an actual storm or a disability or whatever it may be. He is up to the task of giving you the victory in all things when we depend upon Him for our daily strength. Give Him the glory for your healing and for your blessings because all good things come from God.

God is good in all ways and always God is good! Amen!

How can I be saved?


There is a scripture which says this in the book of John: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting (eternal) life”. John 3:16

FB_IMG_1521382243378All that is required of us is to be convicted of our own sinful nature and then desire to repent and believe that Jesus really DID pay the penalty for our sins! A child can believe this, so what makes it so difficult for an adult? Is it because we have learned more about life during our years or is it that a child can believe without needing proof?

In many ways, I think it is that a child’s mind and heart haven’t been corrupted or polluted with all of the evil that is in the world. They still carry a bit of innocence in their spirit so when they hear the Truth or when the Holy Spirit touches their heart, they know Who it is and they turn to Him without question. As adults, we want to analyze and ponder over our decisions, even if those decisions have eternal consequences.IamtheWay

Salvation is not something which can be bought or earned in any sort of way. It is offered by the will of God through faith in Jesus the Christ and by the grace and mercy extended to us by God Himself. We cannot demand it of Him nor can we purchase it with any amount of money, even if it were silver or gold.

Jesus came into the world with only one command from His Father and that was to go to the children of Israel and offer them salvation through their belief in Him. While it is true that many did believe in Him and what He came to offer, many more did not. The priests of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees did not believe that He was the Messiah, with the exception of a couple of them. He came to the people, the fishermen to bring His message through them.

His birth was announced to shepherds, His disciples were a collection of fishermen, a tax collector, a thief, and a tentmaker/mender. He went to the house of a sinner who was a tax collector and has a meal with his friends. Jesus went to the people that He came into the world to save, not to the people who thought they were too religious and righteous in their own minds. They thought they were too good, too righteous to need to be forgiven of their sins. Even at that time, there were those who were too heavenly minded to be any Earthly good to God’s Kingdom. (In other words, they thought they were doing God a favor by worshiping Him)

God doesn’t need us for our worship or our money or anything else that we can offer Him. But…we need Him for our very lives! He provides us with shelter and with sunlight and the air that we breathe. He provides the water for us to drink and our food that we eat. God is the Creator so everything in the universe is His! All of the gold and silver and copper and bronze and the precious stones as well. What could your pitiful bank account offer Him? Every dime and penny which we have earned in life is His anyway, we are just borrowing it to use it for our purposes and to give some back to Him to keep the message going.

The least that we could do is to give Him our body and mind as a living sacrifice every day! Wake up in the morning and ask Him what can I do for your Kingdom today, Lord? Then read some scriptures in the gospels and the Psalms and pray that He will give you an answer from your Bible.

Did God make the right choice?


Actually, that is a very silly question. Of course, God made the right choice but which one am I referring to? That depends on what you are willing to do. Has God chosen you for something? But you really don’t want to follow Him in that direction or even go in that direction with your Christian walk. You should realize that this is a decision which is dangerous. Jonah made this kind of decision and God turned him around and brought him to where he wanted him to be.

Do you really want to go against God when you feel His call in your life? Deciding to go one direction and you decide that you will wait or maybe you just won’t go at all.

If He is telling you to go this way and you decide to go but by a different route, are you really obeying Him? It is not wise to try to find your own path to get where God wants you. If He is leading you toward this area and you decide to skirt around that and go to another area that seems more promising in your estimation. Isn’t that actually disobeying God?

In life, we are faced with many choices. Some of the decisions are hard to make and some are fairly easy. So, what do you do when God calls you plainly to lead a planting of a church and you ignore Him? What about when you feel led by Him to preach on a certain scripture and then you change your sermon to something different before the service? Still being disobedient.

In the Old Testament, God expected faith from His servants that He called and He expected them to obey His commands. He still expects this today, so why don’t we hear Him and obey like we should? Is it pride or selfishness which is getting in the way? Maybe. Is it just stubbornness which is keeping us on our path rather than the path that He wants us to be on? Many times I believe that is the problem. We are comfortable where we are and we don’t want to change even if it is God Who is trying to get us to listen.

The big problem here is this: God will get your attention, one way or the other!! You can run away and hide, you can try to ignore His call, but eventually, He will win. He will get you turned around and going in the right direction. Remember, His Son died for us to be saved from our own mistakes so it is only fitting that we should obey Him and follow His lead in our Christian walk with Him.

God gives each of us a talent or a gift or some ability to be useful in His Kingdom, many of us have more than one gift but God expects us to use those gifts for His purposes and His Kingdom. Can we use them in other places? Of course, we can, but the main reason that we have these gifts is for God’s Kingdom first and foremost.

1 Corinthians 12:7-11 ESV 
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

Why did He ride a donkey?


This is a question which I thought of while I was young and I have had others ask me too. Why did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a donkey? To fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 9: 9-10 for one reason and so that the people would know that He was bringing salvation to them, not war, and not as a conquering King. A king would normally ride into his city on a white horse, a charger symbolizing victory over the enemy or enemies. But, Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey, the foal of a beast of burden. What is the message here?

The message from our point of view is that He was letting the people know that He was NOT going to overthrow Rome, but that He was to be recognized as Israel’s Savior, their Messiah. Unfortunately, the people and the priests did not see Him as the Messiah, they only saw a prophet who could do some really great miracles, like healing a blind man or a leper or even bringing one who had been dead for four days back to life again! But..they did not see a Messiah.

The most telling part of this, at least to me, is that He rode on a colt which had not been broken to riding yet. Why is this significant? Because the colt knew that this is my Creator and I MUST do whatever He tells me or asks of me. He could’ve ridden into Jerusalem on an unbroken horse and it would’ve submitted itself to Him the same way. God is the Creator of all things, great and small, therefore He is in command of them all. Which is why the waves and the wind obeyed Him in the boat when the storm came upon them.

Jesus was and is just as much God as His Father, He is just a little different. The attributes of Jesus showed His love, compassion, care, and tenderness toward all of His disciples and those to whom He preached. So, what would you say about Jesus? Is He the King and the Lord of your life or do you just know about Him?

If He’s not your Lord, then what are you doing here? Did you come to church just because you are expected to? Did you come because that’s what you do on Sunday morning?

God loves you far more deeply than we can even understand, so why don’t you love Him in the best way possible? This is a relationship after all. Consider this for a moment. Our very lives depend upon His blessings and His grace and yet we seem to discount this all of the time. Your breath and mine come from Him and we are His in spite of our decision to follow Him or not. I don’t mean to say that nobody is going to hell if they die or if they don’t give their life to Jesus and ask for His forgiveness but what I do mean is that God loves all of us in His way and it is a deeper love than we can imagine.

The only human foreshadowing of God’s love for us is the love that we get from our mother and father. It is a love which is deep enough that no matter what we do or say, we are always loved by them. God’s love for each of us is deeper than that even before we come to Jesus and ask for Him to be the Lord of our lives. Does that love become deeper when we become a follower of Jesus and a believer? I think that it does because we are covered in the blood of Jesus which has cleansed us of our sinful stains, so in that sense, I do believe that God sees His Son more than He sees us from that point on.

What is our vocation?


As believers in our Lord Jesus, we have a vocation which is not actually recognized by most who attend church. Our vocation, our job is to tell others about salvation through Jesus. This is not such a hard job actually unless you are trying to tell some of those in your own family about Him. People who have been in church most of their lives already think that they are Christians even if they haven’t given their lives and their hearts to Jesus.

This is a problem of course because just sitting and hopefully listening to the sermons really doesn’t make you a Christian. Neither does being born into a Christian family. You don’t inherit Christianity and you can’t absorb it by being in church more than other people. If it were that easy we would all have an easy time in school, just sit there and soak in the words of the teacher and when the test comes up…just pass it. No problem.

But, learning about Jesus or God’s laws or anything that you hear in church is not the only way to come to know about Jesus. The problem is that knowing about Jesus or the Ten Commandments doesn’t make you a Christian either. You can have “head-knowledge” or “book learnin” about Him and all things in the Bible, but just knowing about Him or learning some verses in Psalms or Proverbs doesn’t make you a Christian.

Truly, reading the Bible gives you a foundation in the Scriptures but unless you have asked God to show you His wisdom in your reading. Reading the Bible once per year is a good practice to get into as well, but if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and asked Him into your life to change you from the sinner that you were then all of the reading in the world will not bring salvation.

So, how can we be or become Christians? The first thing which happens is that you will feel a conviction from the Holy Spirit. This is the calling of God to your Spirit to bring you into His family. Can you ignore this? Yes, you can although some say that you can’t. The problem with ignoring the call of God’s Spirit is that you may not get another chance. Remember, we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

After the conviction of the Spirit, you need to ask Jesus to come into your life and change you so that you will go into the world a changed person. You are not the sinner that you were, but you need to read the Bible so that you can learn God’s voice and allow it to wash your mind in His Word. Why is this needed? Because, washing your mind and your life in the Water of Life, God’s Word, is the only way to become a Christian who is grounded in Him and His wisdom.

I know that all that I have said in the paragraph above sounds like I have been giving you requirements of becoming a Christian but all of them aren’t requirements but they are suggestions. Suggestions which will make your Christian life even better and more productive.

What is the difference?


OnlyJesusIn the world today there are many, many religions and their differences can be confusing, even baffling to someone who doesn’t practice one or another. Some are looking for a stress-free environment or a way to live as stress-free as possible. Others are thankful for just living one day at a time, while some religions seem to worship everything around them.

Then, there is Christianity which worships one God which has three persons. That doesn’t mean that there are multiple gods in Christian worship, the three in One serve the same purpose in different ways.

God the Father is our Creator and the Creator of everything in the universe. God the Son was sent to Earth to reconcile mankind’s sinful ways so that we could come to the Father through the sacrifice of the Son, Jesus. God the Holy Spirit has a job which includes the other two, but He is Spiritual in form and function. Which makes His function kinda hard to describe. The Spirit or Holy Ghost as He has been called allows our minds to understand and learn the Truths of Scripture when we study and read it. He is also the One Who convicts your spirit of the need for salvation if you aren’t saved through Jesus already.

If you could be physically in the room with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, they would look alike but different. Similar to being in the room with triplets. They look the same but there are subtle differences which are seen and understood but which are also hard to detect. Am I making this distinction worse or understandable? If you saw the movie, The Shack, you get a little bit of the differences and similarities that I am talking about.

None of the other religions claim to actually get you into heaven, except Christianity. They call it paradise or nirvana or oneness. Jesus even called it Paradise once on the cross when He was talking to the thief who asked to be remembered when He came into His Kingdom. Heaven would and will be a true Paradise because there is no death, no disease, no need for any of our man-made things to feel better because in the Presence of God nothing can hurt or harm us!

We will be in the dwelling place of God Himself and since He is the manifestation of Love and Life, there will be nothing which can take those blessings from us ever again! The descriptions of Heaven which some have written about or painted are so much beyond our ability to put into words or even to paint them with the colors or the words that we have until it truly blows your imagination apart. The mind has not seen nor can the imagination fathom what Heaven looks or feels like because we have nothing to compare it to.

A life lived in honor of and following Jesus is one which is never boring or without results which will burn into eternity. God loves us and since He gave His Son to pay the penalty for our sins, then we should give our lives to Him as a living sacrifice so that others may know His blessings and His grace.

 

We need hope


But, where can we find that hope? Have you ever wondered about that? We can’t do it alone. Our collective hope should come from Jesus, but will this ever happen? Yes, it will but it will be after a time of great suffering in our world. Why do hope and redemption come to us after hardship or suffering? In many ways, it is because we need to learn a lesson and God knows how stubborn we are. So, our hope and our deliverance come at the cost of hardship and suffering.

We always pray for deliverance and hope, sometimes we don’t use those specific words but it is the presence of hope that most of us are searching for. There are times when hope seems to be very far away or even not attainable, but God is as near as our next prayer and that is what gives us hope. God does care about all of us and He is never any distance from you, yet we think He is at times.

Hope is also the offspring of love and since God is Love personified then just knowing that your prayer is heard and that He listens to it and knows your situation gives you hope. So, why do people generally ignore Him and look in all sorts of places and people for their hope? I believe that it is because of the time in which we live.

What is so different about this “time”? If you can look back about forty or fifty years, with your parents or grandparents, they can tell you about how the world was when they were young. I know, many of you are tired of hearing about “the good old days”, but in many instances compared to today, that was true! Crime statistics from 1960, 1970 and 1980 all show a very different world from what we see and hear today.

For instance, in 1960 there were less than 200 car thefts per 100,000 people in the whole of the United States.a5667a1c-d550-49b9-9c38-daf1c70db46c

This is just one statistic but you get the point. I am sure there are others out there which can be found on the Internet. My point is that even though theft of cars has gone down and is even approaching the numbers from 57 years ago, other metrics like murder, rape, crimes against humanity (religious wars), are rising. All of this is happening because we are nearing the time described in the book of Revelation.

Why am I bringing this up in a post which is about hope? Because our Hope is in Jesus and He is coming back very soon. This is why Satan and his demons and spirits are intensifying their work these days. Their time is growing short and they know it! I am not speaking of people being possessed, just that spirits and demons can influence people, especially those who have ignored giving their lives to Jesus.

I am not speaking of people who just “claim to be Christians” because there are far more of those than there are actual Christians. People claim to be Christians when they have been to a church service once or twice a year. They also claim this distinction when their parents went to church when they were young as if you can inherit it. Christianity is not something like a cold or the flu, you don’t get it by being in contact with a Bible or being present in a church service occasionally!

You are and become a Christian when you have felt the call of the Lord on your heart, which you will be able to detect. It isn’t emotional nor is it just a decision which you make to become a Christian. When the Holy Spirit touches your heart or your soul, that part of you which can’t be found on an MRI, you will know it. Occasionally it comes during a service or by watching a service on TV, God can use any venue to get your attention. But it is NOT just a decision on your part!

Some people will tell you that you can refuse to listen when this happens and you can ignore it for a while. But I don’t recommend it. Read the book of Jonah and you will see that when God wants to use someone for His purposes, you will be brought around in time. My own calling into the ministry was over thirty years ago, but I ignored it until about ten years ago and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. No, God doesn’t make your life hard or unhappy in order to turn your heart back to His call but He will cause you to feel that call in a more urgent way.

Your hope and mine lie in the arms of Jesus and when you feel His call on your life, don’t put it off. My reason for this is that you can’t be sure of the length of your life and if you don’t accept Him as your Savior and Lord when you feel His call, you may not get another chance to accept it. An out of control car or tire on the highway could take your life tonight and you will meet Him but in a very different circumstance than what you should. Meeting Him without knowing Him and being a Christian will be…well let’s just say it isn’t very good at all.