Category: Believe in the One Who saves

Demons…


There are many “demons” in our world. They don’t look like the movies or even what most of us think they would look like. Some of them are drug addiction or even alcoholism that so many people deal with. Others are the diseases that we have to deal with that cause addiction, to begin with. No one knows how badly it affects people, but Satan knows how to cause people to become addicted.

People don’t really believe that demons or even Satan exist. That is why is it so easy for him to manipulate those who have no spiritual background. I’m not talking about “new age” spiritualism, I’m talking about those who have been to a Bible-teaching church. These are people who attend church but they think they are saved because of the church they attend. Some think that because their family has always been in this church, they are saved. That is not what Jesus said. He said, “He who believes in Me shall have eternal life“.

We don’t become Christians by osmosis, we become Christians when the Holy Spirit convicts our Spirit that we need Jesus as our Savior and we believe in Him for our salvation. It is our choice but it is also a daily walk with Him. Prayer and reading God’s Word DAILY, not just on Sunday, is where you engage Him on a daily basis and learn from Him every day. The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us about Jesus when we are doing our part by reading the Bible every day.

Many people would say that they don’t have time to read the Bible every day, but God gives us the same amount of time every day. We make time for things that don’t mean anything to our lives but we won’t do the very thing that will help us to live according to His Word. God loves us and He knows what is in your heart. Make sure of your walk with Him and your Salvation because the time of the church and this age of grace is coming to an end. What day that may be no one knows but God Himself but if you compare today’s news with the prophecies you can see that our world is coming to the end of our time.

It could be a few years or maybe a decade but I don’t believe it will be more than that. I pray that everyone who reads this will seek Him for your salvation because not one of us is given more than today to seek Him.

Do you believe?


There are many who think that they do. Mark 11:22 is where Jesus told His disciples to “have faith in God and all things are possible”. The kind of faith that He was speaking of is one that is not swayed by feelings or problems. It is the kind of faith that allows you to believe even when things don’t look good or when things are not going the way you want them to. I think of people who go to church and study their Bibles yet they get a diagnosis of cancer. Does your faith give you the strength to stand up to that?

Many people’s faith doesn’t. Why? Because, in my opinion, they don’t think that God cares enough about them or their problems, their faith and belief in Him is not strong enough to stand up to their problems. It is not easy to believe that our Creator loves us this much. Especially when we can’t see Him or the evidence of His love but it is all around us. He gives us the food that we have to live on and the air that we breathe. He gave His Son to pay the price for our sins so that we could be redeemed from the penalty of those sins.

There is an unending supply of evidence that God loves each of us but many of us choose not to see it. We go through our lives every day and we live by the same rules that we have lived by all of our lives, some of them are His rules and some are not. The point is that we choose to pay little attention to the details that He takes care of when we can’t. He takes care of many details that we may never be aware of, like an accident that we avoided because He caused us to be a little later getting on the road. We may blame Him for causing us to be late but if we had been there when we intended, we could’ve been hurt in an accident.

There are likely many things that God does for us in the background that we aren’t aware of now, but we may find out about them when we are in His Presence one day. Then we will know about the little details that He took care of when we didn’t know He was doing it. Your faith in His should be based on all of the things that you can read about in His Word. Not because He did it two thousand years ago but because He can still do it today. Remember, Jesus said that we can do the things that He did and even greater…but it is likely dependent on our faith and our belief in Him.

Pray and sing to Him!


Who are you?


That is the title of a great song. To answer the question that is being asked would take many words. It is safe to say that none of us are who we thought we would be when this time came. Some of us think that we know who we are, but do we really? Since you were in grammar school life’s experiences have made changes in you and in the person that you are right now. Some of those changes are good and some…not so much. What is my point? We are not genetically disposed to be this way or that other than being either a male or a female. Your genetics also control your eye and hair color and to some extent your personality and your skin color too.

But much of our everyday persona is learned behavior. We learn it from our parents and our friends and from everyone that we are exposed to in school. When we were in junior high school we would change our ideas almost daily just to be liked by those we aspired to be like.

So…who are you?

Each of us is the sum total of all our life experiences, good or bad. In many ways, it is hard to believe that we haven’t blown each other up long before now. We are still here, not because humanity is getting better, but because God is not finished with us yet. There are still some prophecies that need to be fulfilled including the state of Israel and its people recognizing their Messiah.

Cultures around the world are very different from each other because of their “life experiences” and most of our wars would never have happened if we were all more like Jesus. But we can’t be that good, at least not on our own. One day soon, we will see the Son of God. and the church will be taken up. When that happens, the whole world will know that the Bible was true. I pray that many more will seek Him out as their Savior before then.

Obedience…


In the Bible, we read that God commanded the sacrifice of animals and the shedding of their blood to atone for the people’s sins. This was at a time before Jesus came and paid for our sins collectively. Why did God ask for the sacrifices in the Old Testament? In many ways, it was to show the people that they couldn’t be good enough to be redeemed. At least on their own, they couldn’t.

In the book of Kings, God told Saul that He desired obedience more than a sacrifice. Why is obedience more important to God than sacrifice? Because He asks us to do something for Him and since He is God it is expected of His children to obey. If you are a Christian, you have been adopted into God’s family. He asked Jesus to take on the sins of the world and pay the penalty for those sins so we would not have to pay it. Since we are children of God, shouldn’t we obey Him in all things…every day?

The blessing that we have been given through Jesus is not something that we have earned, it is given to us through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We must believe in His sacrifice and in order to believe in it and place our faith in Him we were given the grace and the faith to believe. We didn’t conjure it up on our own, it was given to us through God’s mercy and His grace toward us because of Jesus.

God saw each of us down through time and He knew that we would need Jesus at a certain point in our lives. Then, He provided us with the faith to recognize that we were sinners in need of a Savior so we would seek Him out. I know that some people don’t like the idea that they didn’t have anything to do with their salvation other than to believe in Him and accept it but that is how God works. When you feel His touch in your life regardless of where you may be at the time, respond to Him and accept His gift of grace. The opportunity may not come again.

We are forgiven


Help will be repaid


Work as for the Lord


Trust in the Lord


Psalm 31: 14-16 says: “But, I trusted in the thee, O Lord, I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me for thy mercies’ sake”.

Why should you trust in the Lord? Because being a truly changed Christian requires it. Trust is also another word for faith or “having faith in”. God is our Creator and our Redeemer and the faith that we should have in Him for our salvation is necessary for that salvation to be real. If it is not there, then your salvation may not be real either. Going a bit further, trusting in Him is the only way to know God and His Son as your Savior.

So, why do people in our world today seem to believe in things that have no eternal meaning? It seems that people will believe in many things today that have no basis in fact at all and cannot be proven scientifically but they will argue with you feverishly over their “beliefs” even when they cannot prove any of them. Jesus came to the Earth to bear the sins of the world and to pay the penalty for all of humanity. Whether you believe in Him or not or even if you have accepted Him as your Savior or rejected His offer, He still came and paid the price for your soul. That is how much God values your soul.

Even if only one other person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God knows who you are and He values you enough to pay your way into heaven by believing in Jesus for your salvation. When you feel broken and hurt and depressed, God is there waiting for you to turn to Him. He can heal your heart and the problems that are weighing on your life. He can give your life a meaning that it has never had before, regardless of your background or any of your sins in your life…He loves you!

Are you grown up?


When you are younger, growing up is not easy. Oh, we enjoy recess period at school and we enjoy our summer breaks but there are many things that we don’t enjoy. Homework, tests, pop-tests, falling and skinning your knees…all of these things are hard and hurtful at times but they help us to learn. So…are you grown up? Some of us are and some of us are keeping back some part of our life to keep from being grown up into maturity.

Have you given your life to Jesus and asked Him to come into your heart to be your Savior? Have you surrendered your life to Him fully? A fully surrendered life is given as a definite, deliberate, voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of your entire being to the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we rightfully belong. He paid for your salvation and mine through His death, burial, and resurrection and since He is our Creator, He is entitled to our whole being. But, we must voluntarily give it to Him.

This is something that we have a very hard time doing. We are individuals and we enjoy being free to do as we please. But when you give your life and your heart to Jesus, you have to give Him the whole of yourself, not just a part of you. This is what I’m talking about when I mentioned being “grown-up”. Maturing as a Christian is not an easy task because we want to have control over many parts of our lives. We need to seek His counsel in every part of our lives not just our spiritual lives. He wants to be involved in all areas of your life. Why? Because He loves us!

The problem comes because we live our lives daily for many years without thinking about Jesus. We go to grammar school and sometimes junior high without considering Him or even His ways. Sometimes we may even live through college and into our “adult” life without Him fully in our life. I don’t understand how people can live like this but it seems that many do. Living a life that is surrendered to Jesus is a conscious, deliberate decision and it is one that we must do every day. It isn’t easy but it can be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. Doing this or trying to do this on your own will not work.

The little planet that God created for us to live on is the focus of His attention in the universe. Why? Because the people that He chose to bring the Messiah into the world through are here. God created the universe and our little planet too. He created the stars and galaxies and all of the life that is on our little planet and He did it to make life interesting. When sin was brought into our world it corrupted all of creation, not just mankind. That is why there are so many problems and things that are not right in the world. One day in the future, the corruption that sin caused will be taken away. What a wonderful day that will be.

Seek Jesus and learn to be His disciple every day. Grow up in your faith and in your walk with Him so you can be more useful to Him and His Kingdom. It will take time but it will be worth it.