Category: Believe in the One Who saves

What is the Bible good for?


2 Timothy 3:16-17: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

This is the belief of Jewish scholars today and it was at the time that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy. God inspired the different writers to put down in written word His instructions for us. That is where the Scriptures came from, specifically from the Holy Spirit of God who inspired men to write the words down.

What is the Bible and the Scriptures contained within it good for? Specifically it is for doctrine, for reproof and correction, for instruction in righteousness because without it and the knowledge that is contained in it we would know nothing of God! We would also know nothing of Jesus and the Gospel of His life and teachings.

heaven-or-hell-eternal-destinyWhy study the Bible? Because..if you intend to be an adopted child of God through Jesus, then you must get to know Him and the Father. I mean, how else could you know how to do their will in your life or even get to know what that will might be? We are each given a purpose for our life by God when He formed each of us in the womb. The only way that we can find that purpose is to get to know Him through His Word and find our purpose there.

Life can be fulfilling for each of us through our work on this Earth, but it will be much more so if we are working for our treasure in Heaven where we will spend eternity! The only way that we can do that is by learning God’s will for our lives and it really is pretty simple actually. Live your life the way Jesus did, in your business and in your everyday life so that others will see more of Him through you, reflected by your life and not just your ideas and opinions.

Seek His will in the Word for your life and for your reward in eternity because our time is growing shorter by the day. Read Revelation and see the events leading up to the time of Tribulation and you will see that the things happening today are the rumors and the birth pains of Creation leading up to the end times. Don’t wait until it is too late! Don’t put it off because you don’t know if you have tomorrow or not! None of us knows for sure if we will wake in the morning or if we will open our eyes in eternity, whatever that may be for you or me.

We don’t have gods, just One God


Some people think that Christians worship three gods. But..if you look at the passage where Jesus got baptized, He is there (of course), the voice of God says that “this is my Son” and the Holy Spirit comes to Him in bodily form of a dove.

The Holy Trinity in one place at the same time, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit, not three gods but One God in three forms and all of them just as much God as the other! Our Creator isn’t limited to one form nor is He limited in any way that we can understand.

Yet, we try to put limits on Him and believe that He has emotions and the same sort of limitations which we have. We who are His Creation, attempt to make the Creator in our image and in our limited abilities, so that we can understand Him and believe in Him. Do you understand that God is bigger than we can imagine! He created this universe, not just the little ball of mud that we live on.

There are no “gods” in religions on the Earth, those entities who caused men to dream of things and see a form which looked like an angel, they are devils and demons and their leader is Satan! He is the one who brought man to the tree which God told him not to eat of, even so God knew that this would happen as well. Jesus is the “seed of the woman” spoken of in Genesis, the One Who is the Living Word and the Son of God!

The time is coming and will come soon, when many will see the end of the age and the church will be taken from this world. At this time, a man will come into power who is very persuasive in his speech and he will be given more power than any man on Earth has ever held. This is spoken of in Revelation in the Bible and it is not my prediction, but prophecy from God.

PromisesfromGodsWordMake sure of your salvation, seek out Jesus the Christ and salvation through Him, don’t put it off thinking that you have plenty of time. Many who thought this in the storms which have come to America recently thought they had time as well. We have some storms which are coming still and they are worse in magnitude than anything that nature can create from wind and sea.

Our lives, with all of the stuff which we put so much of our life and our energy into, are pitifully short on this Earth, particularly in reference to eternity which awaits us. Seek out God and His Son for your salvation because you do not know when your last day may be. We are not given a set number of years to live. No one knows that they will be alive, even in the morning after tonight’s sleep. Please make sure before the time of testing comes on this Earth because it will affect the whole of the population not just a few million but everyone who is alive at the time!

Living on borrowed time


Life is given to each of us to live in a way that seems right in our own lives, at least that is what we think anyway. God places each of us here so that we can fulfill part of His plan for our lives. The problem being that we have to find out which part and how to do it. Sometimes we don’t come to know Him early enough in our lives, but I imagine that is part of His plan too. Then there are times when we push Him away or we don’t agree with Him on our part and how it is to be done.

We seem to act as if we are the ones being inconvenienced by God’s plan when it is His plan which is being placed on a back burner so to speak. Although, God can work around our stubbornness too, it just may take a bit longer but His purpose will be done by and by. Why did I pick this topic or subject to write about today? Because a wonderful songwriter died today. Don Williams.

I am not going to get off topic and spout how wonderful his songs were or what a melodious voice he had, because if you have ever heard him sing you already know it. It’s just that our world is near the end of the age and many of those who influenced my life are already gone on before me. I makes me kinda nostalgic a bit for the days of youth when we all thought we had as much time as we would ever need.

The problem with that thinking is that each of us soon finds out that our time is getting shorter almost on a daily basis. The older we get, instead of slowing down so we can enjoy it, time seems to speed up and get faster as we age. It also seems to be happening to our world too. Most of the prophecies concerning the time prior to the Tribulation have already come to pass. All of the “little details” like the weather going crazy and other nonsense which is supposed to be happening around us, you see and hear that on the news every day.

I don’t mean that we should jump up and down in the street shouting “The end is near!!”, “Repent while you can!”, but honestly the world will soon find out that every word and every punctuation mark in God’s Word will be fulfilled whether you or many millions of others believe in it or in Him! The problem today is that the world and those in it don’t want to hear how God’s Word is coming true before their eyes if they would just recognize it, but even when Jesus was standing in front of them the religious leaders didn’t recognize their Messiah.

If you feel that you need Jesus, please seek Him out soon and learn as much as you can about Him. Give your life to Him so you won’t be left to endure the horror which is coming.john317

So much, yet…


It seems that in our culture today, we have so much and yet we still complain. Now, I am not saying that we are similar to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt, but they complained about a lot of things too. We have so much in the way of possessions and stuff but it is all disposable and we still want more! Why?

It just seems that we are never satisfied with what we have. God has given us a planet that is moderate in its temperature range, we have gravity to keep us firmly on the ground. There is air to breathe and our days are split between night and day so we have time to work and sleep too. So why do we complain about life and the stuff that we have or don’t have?

We should be thankful for our family and our health, if we are enjoying good health. If you have a job, be thankful for that. Life and living for Jesus is so much more than…stuff! Living for the Lord and with Jesus in your life is so much more than things that we see and have to deal with each day. But, it seems that we are never satisfied with life, particularly our life if we have given our hearts to Jesus.

We look around at all of the stuff that others have, some of whom we think are not followers of Jesus and some who are. We question God, like Job did in his time of testing, and we ask “Why can’t we have xxxx car or this huge house and a bank account to go with it?”.

The answer is the one which Jesus gave to His followers about the rich man. “It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.“; my quote is a paraphrase but you get the meaning of it. I qualify this by asking a couple of questions: Does a wealthy man need anything? He can have anything that he desires, so why would he want God in his life? Is a wealthy person ever hungry or thirsty? Not unless it is forced upon him I’d wager, so why would he or she ever hunger for Jesus and the freedom that being a Christian affords?

Wealth and so-called privilege can give a person much that the world has to offer. But, being a Christian and living your life as one who is a follower and a disciple of Jesus is not something that the world nor the wealthy would desire. Until, somehow, they are brought to a point of true and desperate need which their money cannot give them. Or if they grew up in poverty and became wealthy later in life and they knew that it was the blessing of God which brought their wealth, which they cheerfully gave to help others in need.

Because, until someone gets to the point of realization which shows them Who they truly need, it doesn’t matter if you have money or not, you will not seek out Jesus for your salvation. Until you know that there is nothing which you can do for salvation or healing or whatever you may feel that you need, not in this life but to bring you into God Presence, you will not seek out any knowledge of God nor will you look for salvation in Jesus.

The end of the season


Summer-to-FallWe have finished the summer season, although here in the Deep South, the heat will linger on until sometime in late September or possibly through October. We only have two seasons anyway, less heat and more heat. Usually with the “more heat” we also get more rain and more humidity too, so late spring for most everyone is sticky for us and it only gets more sticky as the summer goes on. Life, of course, goes on. We have mildew and mold in places where it should not be. After April or early May, it is not enjoyable to watch the Braves play baseball in Pearl because even sitting in the stands you are wringing wet with sweat (which is why I never buy season tickets).

Yep, seasons in the South are rarely the kind that you can actually enjoy outside. You just trudge through the humidity and the ticks and the mosquitos and hope you don’t come down with West Nile virus or Lyme disease. Living in Mississippi is not exactly a challenge as much as it is an ongoing ordeal in humidity. By now, you have probably noticed that I don’t really like the humidity here. Even though I have lived here since I was five, I would much rather live in the Midwest.

But, economics and all that goes with it demands that I stay put so I do. The Bible says that we are placed in the world to be light and hope for others. We are also to be the voice of Jesus in the places where we live and work, by telling others about Him when the situation comes along. So why aren’t we doing this? As members of the church and the body of Jesus Christ on Earth, we are supposed to be His feet and hands and mouth by doing what He would do and going where He would go and telling others about the grace offered to them through God’s grace.

This is the commission which He gave to His disciples when He went to Heaven and it is still valid for us today. As scripture says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14

We are supposed to be those who tell others about Jesus so that they will have a chance to know Him and come into eternity when He returns. If we don’t do this when we have the chance to do it, then it will fall on each of us as taking away some of our rewards in Heaven. Those who have been near you who don’t know about Jesus, especially if they have asked you about Him, are the field which is white unto harvest.

We are supposed to tell them so that God can have more people brought into His Kingdom. You don’t have to preach or be a missionary, just tell anyone who asks what He has done for you in all things. This medium is a good way to do this but you should be ready when someone is seeking the reason for your joy.

Superficial belief


In today’s world it seems to be hard to actually have a belief in Jesus that is deeper than “skin deep”. Why is that? Mainly, it is because of fear I think. Because laws have been passed which condemn the mention of His name in some circles. Because it is not politically correct to be an openly Christian person in any public area or arena.

Today, it seems that our Christian beliefs are not correct enough to be proclaimed in any public arena outside of our churches. We are supposed to keep them to ourselves, according to the law but according the command of our Lord we are NOT supposed to keep this good news to ourselves.

The truth of the CrossWe have not been saved through Jesus’ sacrifice to keep that salvation to ourselves! While it is true that our view on salvation, sin, and eternity are views which aren’t held by much of the world today, God loves them regardless and He wants them to come to know Jesus for their salvation. It is true that, in the view of the world, we are narrow-minded and hypocritical in our lives it must be realized that only one Person was ever able to live a perfect, sinless life!

Yes, we falter and fail in many ways on a daily basis but so does everyone else in this world full of religions! There is no person on Earth which can keep all of the laws and demands of their religion perfectly every hour of every day! Christians included!

In order to be a practicing and faithful Christian our faith and our knowledge of Jesus is not supposed to be superficial! It is supposed to be the core of our being and at the heart of everything that we do in life whether it is in business or our daily living. I know that there are questions about this, so I will try to address them to the best of my ability.

How can I take Jesus with me in my business or professional life?

This one isn’t as hard as it seems. When you get up in the morning, thank God for your life and the ability to live it one more day. Ask Him to walk with you during the day and live your day in the knowledge that He is there. Be in a thankful mood for all of the things which happen during your day, good or bad. Don’t push Him away or attend a meeting or a hearing or whatever you do without Him. I don’t mean to bring Scripture into every meeting or encounter, but keep your mind as focused on God throughout the day as you can. With a bit of practice, it can be done.

What should I do when I say or do something that I know is sinful in His eyes?

Just ask forgiveness and move on with your day. Don’t beat yourself over the head about it. If your heart belongs to Him already, then your sins are forgiven, so act like it. But…don’t act as if you can walk on water because you can’t! Realize that your life is your witness for Jesus whether you say anything about Him to anyone or not.

Is it possible to lead someone to Jesus without preaching to them?

Of course. Let them see you praying over your food at lunchtime. If they ask about your faith, tell them what Jesus did for you and how He strengthens you each day. Show them in a Bible, if one is available, where He says that “all are welcome”. Here is a quote from the Bible to remember:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

Living a life with Jesus present in it is not a hard thing, but like most disciplines in life it has to be practiced, daily. It is not a once-a-week refill of His Spirit but a daily practice of knowing that He is with you and thanking Him for His grace and His forgiveness too. At first living like He is walking with you every step of the way isn’t easy, but with practice it gets easier. Seek Him in the morning, walk through your day in a prayerful and thankful mind and then thank Him for sustaining you throughout the day. This is planting Him deep within your soul and not living a superficial and unfulfilling Christian life!

Live your walk on purpose for Him!

 

The message is true!


Nobody's mad but youThis message about Satan being angry or rather furious with Christians is true, but we are protected by the blood of Jesus. He cannot harm us at all! He can cause us pain and heartache by the death of loved ones, he can also cause our death, if God allows it, but he can do nothing without God saying that he can.

Long before Jesus came, Satan attacked Job and took everything from him to try to force Job to curse God or lose his faith in God. It didn’t work. Learn from Job and from the rest of the Bible because the Truth is absolute whether you like it or believe it at all!

Life is hard enough living day by day without understanding that Satan HATES you immensely! Yes, he would love to take your life, your children, your job, and everything else that you have away from you and then gloat in watching you suffer through it all! In Christ we have an advocate and a Protector that will stand with us through it all. That doesn’t mean that we won’t ever have trouble as Christians, but we will have His Strength and His Presence in our lives to help us get through any trouble that we have.

Some people call Christianity a “crutch” or a weak-minded way of dealing with life. Some even try to tell others that what we believe in is a lie and that the disciples just made it all up. Let me ask you this: if someone was going to put you to death by fire or any other means if you didn’t recant your belief in Jesus, would you recant? If you knew it was a lie you would.

That is why the testimony of the book, Foxes Book of Martyrs, is so powerful! Stephen wouldn’t have been stoned for a lie. There were many Roman soldiers who died because they became Christians. Many of the early church were killed in the arena by lions and other horrible ways for their faith! This has been happening for nearly 2000 years, and it is still happening today. Because, the testimony of the Bible and all of the Christians who have died for their faith shows that our faith is not in some made-up story or fantasy.

Jesus is REAL and He is coming soon, so you need to decide which so-called “lie” will you believe. The one where Satan tells you that all of it is hogwash and that you can rule with him in hell one day or will you believe the Truth of Jesus the Christ Who came and paid the price for your eternal soul?

A church reborn!


The church today is nothing like what Jesus intended for it to be. Why is that? Have we not heard from the Bible or have we been sitting in church but not listening?

Let me give you a quote from A.W. Tozer who wrote The Crucified LIfe:

The late Dr. A. W. Tozer, author and pastor, said, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

In our churches today, whether they are Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian, would anyone notice is the Holy Spirit was not present? In some churches, I don’t believe that anyone would notice at all. Is it possible to follow Christ so closely until there is little difference in your actions and deeds? I am not sure that any church would want to be revived enough to live that close to Jesus.

The things of God, which we hear about from our reading the Bible and from the sermon on Sunday, are what make up our faith and our trust in Him. We also delight in the Lord because of His goodness and the value of the treasures that are in our Heavenly home and not the one that we occupy here! When we value those things that God values then we stand with Him, spiritually, in heaven even when we are still here. We walk with Him here and seek His revealing on Earth and we will live for eternity.

Paul wrote about this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1:

1 Thessalonians 1

King James Version

1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers;
3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.
6 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.
7 So that ye were examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.
9 For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

VineandBranchesIf our church, regardless of the denomination, is to be reborn then we must do it soon. Repent and ask for God’s forgiveness of our arrogance and our prideful ways. We have been prideful for many years in the church, thinking that our doctrines and our bylaws govern us and get us within reach of Jesus. That kind of thinking will send many straight to hell.

Why? Because no amount of works or money or “wisdom” from a preacher or a committee can equal the wisdom of God’s Word! Changing words around or even taking them from Scripture and calling the “new bible” an improved “translation” is also a good way to lead many into hell. That is an eternity which I don’t want to be responsible for, nor do I want to go into eternity without Jesus.

If you are a preacher and you are teaching your congregation that your doctrine or your “new translation” is the way to reach Heaven, please realize that you are taking a whole church into an eternity with Satan. You will be held responsible for leading them down the wrong path and you will suffer for it regardless of your belief in the eternal nature of Hell itself!

Have faith in God alone!


“Isaiah 43:1-2, this is what the Lord says,” do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned and the flames will not set you ablaze.”

onebreathawayOur Lord and Savior is on His throne and all of these promises are given to those who believe in Him. Seek to do good for those who cannot do for themselves because that is what Jesus would do in this world.

Life, especially life on Earth, is precious to God and He doesn’t look kindly on those who take it lightly. We, the whole of humanity, are His creation and in spite of what some religions teach, God loves each person as His own. Why else would He send Jesus to die and pay the penalty for our transgressions, even before most of us today were born?

Yes, God will protect those who believe in Him and His Son and He will give them life even after this body has died. Will all of us see this come to pass in our lifetime? I don’t know nor could I tell you because only God knows when that time will be. He knows the day and the hour and when the time comes, it will happen and not before. It will also happen when God has determined it will and not because of what we are doing or not doing on Earth.

There are some who think that if they cause more death and destruction on Earth it will force the Tribulation/End Times/Whatever you want to call it to begin, but that is not how God works. Yes, He did bring about the flood because of the evil intent of mankind and Jesus said that the condition of the world would be “like the days of Noah”, but our wickedness is not going to trigger the Tribulation.

God’s timing of events will proceed at the pace which He decides on, not on anything that we are doing or not doing at the time.

Make sure that you are ready and looking for His coming when it does happen, because the world which will be here after the church is taken up will be much worse than the one we have now.

 

What is the difference?


IamtheWayIt seems that there are so many different divisions of believers! Why? Aren’t we supposed to be worshipping the same Jesus and from the Bible which is God’s Word? Why do we have all of these denominations?

Mostly because of the work of Satan in the church. You didn’t think he could do that did you? If Satan can attend a meeting in Heaven and accuse Job, speaking to God about him, he can surely come into each of our churches! He may come in as a new convert to Christ or he may show up as a deacon or maybe someone who isn’t satisfied with the preacher.

I don’t mean that he has possessed them, but he plants thoughts into their minds which will take root in the congregation and even begin to fracture the family in the church. If you think about how problems arise in the church, regardless of the denomination, this will make sense. Many times after the church is either split or in some way diminished, the “new” person will leave or the person who planted the seed won’t have any recollection of the problem.

I am not writing this to accuse anyone but I am writing it to bring attention to this problem which does come up in churches all over the world, not just here in America. Paul wrote that we are at war with powers and principalities and these are just some of the forces that Satan has under his command. Thoughts of things which Christians shouldn’t think of, consideration of sinful things which we know we shouldn’t do, these are the “arrows” that our Spiritual armor should protect us from.

But, if you haven’t studied God’s Word and placed it in your mind to give you strength and power to resist these thoughts, then you may entertain them and it will become a stumbling block for you. The war for your spirit and your soul is in your mind and it is there that Satan attacks because he can see what each of us is attracted to the most and he uses it against us.

It is the same when we are having trouble in our churches, Satan and his demons and powers are attacking us, each one of us. Pulling up little things which irk us about a certain speaker or topic and making them seem far worse than they are. This is how he caused Adam and Eve to envy God in the garden and he has been doing it ever since all over the world.

Seek out the truth in God’s Word and study it. Learn from the Old and the New Testaments because they complement and interpret each other. With God’s Wisdom in your heart and in your head, Satan can’t twist it and make it say something when you know it well enough to thwart his plans. He knows scripture better than you do so you have to study it in order to know it at least as well. If you don’t, then he will make it sound like it came from the Bible even when he has changed a word or two to make it seem better or more appealing.

This is why we can’t stop learning scripture. Just because you may have read the entire Bible through last year doesn’t mean that you know it well enough to take him on. If you are like me in your reading, when you have finished reading the Bible, the next day feels empty without reading more of it. Every year I read it through but usually when I have finished it, I go back to Genesis and begin again. Each time over the last seven years I will find something or the Spirit will reveal something to me that I didn’t see or understand before!

I am about halfway through another reading of it and I feel that I should begin again. Why? I don’t know, maybe it is the Spirit prompting me to read again a part of it that I have read so that I can understand it a little better. I usually do find some insight in a passage every time that I read it which didn’t jump out at me before and it makes more sense this time.

I am not claiming to be perfect in my studies because I miss a day or two at times, when life gets in the way or maybe I’m not feeling well for a few days, but the more scripture that you put into your mind and heart the less you will be deceived by cults or by Satan.